The Slave Masters of BoronDin
by Senmut
Summary: In a frantic effort to save the Fleet from starvation, the Colonials encounter a new enemy. From the VS2. After Relics


Virtual Season 2

Episode 9

"The Slave Masters Of Boron-Din."

From The Adama Journals

PROLOGUE

"Since the events of two sectons ago, when Apollo and Sheba returned from their patrol to publicly announce their engagement, and to privately tell me of their terrifying encounter with our old enemy, Count Iblis, I have found myself in both alternating states of tremendous happiness and guarded apprehension. The happiness of course, stems from the realization that the daughter of two people Ila and I considered our best friends on Caprica, will soon become my daughter as well. But even amidst that jubilation, the story of the Derelict spacecraft, assembled from the remains of ships enslaved by the Dark One over countless centuries, is a grim reminder of how the greatest danger we face in our journey across the stars, is ultimately not that of the pursuing Cylon Empire, but of the danger from the one whose ultimate aim is to inflict a fate even worse than the mere death that the Cylons would hope to.

"Amidst all that, life has gone on for us. Apollo and Sheba's sealing date is at least several sectars away, so for now there is only the normal routine. Tribunal date has at last been set for Samuels and Wilmer, who will be facing the death penalty if convicted, as I expect them to be. I feel enough time has elapsed since Baltar's release to negate any notes of political opportunism that might be sounded regarding the circumstances of how the death penalty came to be restored. Work also continues on the attempt to decipher the language of the mysterious 'Silent One's' journal from the Proteus Prison asteroid, but Professor Pliny reports no progress beyond his initial report of two sectons ago. I fear that the answers to what lies in that account of an Earthian's journey back to the outskirts of our home quadrant, may never be truly known in my lifetime, but at the same time I am confidant that if this be a dead end for us, the answers that will lead us to Earth will be found in good time by the grace of the Lords of Kobol."

The vidcom from the Bridge sounded which caused Adama to set his microphone down and switch his journal recorder off. Since he was due to log on the Bridge in the next half-centar, he knew this had to be something important.

CHAPTER ONE

It _had_ been a day most uneventful, for which Adama had been thankful until now. After encounters with primitive aliens, flying reptiles, ancient nuclear weapons, murderous thugs aboard the Fleet, far, far too many sessions with the Council, and, of course Apollo's news about Iblis, he had expected to enjoy this duty watch, still basking in the glow of the news of his son's betrothal. Nothing had gone wrong for the entire night watch. Or the day before that, or the night watch before _that_; the ship was functioning smoothly, the Fleet seemed to be in harmonious order, even the scanners were blank. Perhaps, this evening after he'd logged off, he might be able to unwind a bit, and catch the next Triad game aboard the _Rising Star. _Yes, that was a good idea, he had told himself as he'd shaved.

"Yes, Omega?" He said as he entered the bridge. He tried to keep his voice even.

"A message from _Agro Ship One_, sir. Captain Demeter and Operations Chief Carmichael are on Tach One."

"Transfer to my console, Omega."

_Here goes the triad match!_

"Transferring, sir."

Adama turned his attention from Omega to his screen. From the wing of the bridge, Colonel Tigh was approaching, looking concerned. "Commander?" he asked.

"Don't know yet, Tigh. I just…ah."

"Commander," said Demeter, now on screen. The still-attractive woman of almost-middle age looked haggard and tired, her face smeared with what looked like soot, her hair askew. Though never a fashion plate, Demeter was never anything if not spit and polish. Her transmission was also weak, which was odd, given that her ship was so close.

"Yes, Captain? You needed to speak with me?"

"We have a serious problem over here, Commander. Potentially life-threatening."

"What sort of problem, Captain?"

"Most of our major power systems have blown out, all over the ship. We are sustaining on emergency cells, and auxiliary energizers, but they won't last long. Our surviving engineers are trying to figure out what happened, but…"As she spoke, Demeter's image began to fade and break up, her voice to crackle with static.

_Oh Lords. Athena!_

After trying to reestablish contact and failing, Adama turned to Colonel Tigh.

"Prepare a shuttle, Colonel. Get me Twilly, Wilker, Shadrach, and as many engineering specialists as he can spare, and meet me in Beta Bay immediately. And have all the specifications on _Agro Ship One _downloaded to their datapads."

"Twilly, sir? Commander, Chief Twilly's restricted from visiting the _Agroship_."

"That restriction is now temporarily lifted. This isn't going to be a chance for him to visit one of his former wives."

"Yes, sir," replied Tigh, with a faint hint of a smile and shaking his head.

"The bridge is yours until I return, Colonel."

"Commander is it essential for you to make the visit yourself? I can always see to it that----,"

"Colonel," Adama cut him off, "The _Agroship_ is still responsible for the overwhelming majority of our basic food needs, and if something's happened that could endanger it, I want to be on top of the situation."

"Understood," the executive officer nodded, "Good luck."

Adama got up from his chair, hoping and praying that the situation wasn't as severe as the message indicated. In a blur, he was gone from the bridge.

"Dr. Wilker, Chief Twilly and Maintenance Chief Shadrach have acknowledged and are on their way to Beta Bay, sir," Omega said from his station.

"Thank you," said Tigh. "The sooner they deal with this, the easier we're all going to feel." He looked around the bridge, and frowned. Normally, he liked it whenever he could flex his muscles, and take charge of things. But the tone of the current situation had put a damper on his enthusiasm.

"Colonel?"

"Yes, Rigel?" He moved to her station. She was studying one of the scanners intently, adjusting the instruments over and over.

"Nothing, sir. I _thought _there was something on one of the scanner wavelons, but…" She shook her head.

"What was it?"

"A minor spike, sir." She replayed the sweep for him. "Here, sir," she said, pointing. "A minor gamma ray spike, followed less than a micron later by another, _and _a very, very miniscule x-ray spike."

"What does the computer make of it?"

"Nothing so far, Colonel. It was only there for a period of less than a quarter micron."

"Transient radiation no doubt," he said, straightening up.

"Maybe…"

"Nothing since, Rigel?"

"No sir," she sighed.

"Well we encounter radiation spikes all the time in space. I'm sure it's nothing, Rigel."

"Yes sir," she replied, and watched him return to his post. She looked back at her instruments, and puzzled a few moments. Finally, shrugging, she filed the odd readings, and returned to her real-time scans.

The _Agroship _(Formally registered as _Agro Ship One_ but always known simply as "The _Agroship_" since it was the only one of its kind left and because all other ships that had taken up some of the food producing operations were of a different class entirely) was beautiful, Adama decided, with her domes filled with the plant and animal life of the Colonies, culled in the haste of the Exodus. He relished the few occasions his duties permitted him to visit this huge ship, and for a brief while lose himself in the sights and smells of home.

Only now, the ship looked anything but homelike. All but one of her huge domes were dark, the artificial lights needed to keep the plant life alive gone out. He leaned over, and looked at the scanner readout on the shuttle's dash. The ship's generated power was down by over eighty-five percent, and from the energy signatures he _was _getting, the batteries and emergency energizers were being stretched to their maximum.

"Sir," said Dietra, piloting the shuttle, "we're not getting any response from the ship's landing bay."

"No auto beacon?"

"None, sir." Ahead was the landing bay, and aside from one dim light, it was as dark as the Tombs of Kobol. Having no choice, they headed on in, relieved to discover that both the internal atmosphere and gravity in the bay were still available. Once down, they moved out, and Adama heard his name called from across the gloomy chamber. It was Chief Carmichael.

"Thank God you've come, Commander!" the wiry little man said, coming over to Adama, his face and hands as filthy as Demeter's had been. "Thank God."

"When did this happen?" asked Adama, as Demeter showed him the damage. Most of the ship was sustaining on emergency lighting, and the air was starting to get a bit chill. They stood in what had once been the hatchway to the ship's main power room. Here was generated the nearly five megakillons of electrical energy the ship required to carry out every function necessary to sustain both crew and crops. Super-hot coolant from the main engine core was pumped through here, and via a complex series of heat exchangers, steam was created to turn the energizers and provide power, with no extra tylium consumption required.

Or rather, where it _had _been generated. Where well-maintained, humming energizers had stood, there was now a wasteland of wreckage. All but one of the energizers was completely ripped apart, virtually unrecognizable, the banks of relays, power busses and cables littering what remained of the deck with charred garbage, or hanging in tatters from above. The deck was ripped open into the compartment beneath them, and even as Adama looked, he could see more debris falling into the blackness below. Somewhere in the gloom he could hear the hum of emergency force fields.

"It was less than two centars ago," said Demeter, beginning her report. "We had just completed a full series of diagnostics on the life-support systems after replacing all the filters, when all the gauges began spiking. There was a rumble, and then the power went out."

"Any clues as to the cause?"

"Not yet, sir. Three of my engineers were inside one of these compartments when the explosion occurred. They…they haven't reported in." Demeter closed her eyes, stifling some strong emotion. Adama understood at once. One of the missing engineers and Demeter had been…close.

"Ship's status?"

"Ship's intercom systems are still mostly out, sir. But from what we've gathered so for, we've lost almost ninety percent of our power. The batteries are draining fast, and only one auxiliary energizer is still working. But, it has only about twenty-five thousand, maximum capacity."

"And the crops?"

"Only Dome Four has any significant power, Commander. And, the explosion bent the emergency bulkhead so badly, we're having to use the emergency force field generators to keep from depressurizing. Which eats up our power all the more."

"Estimated time for repairs?" Demeter looked at Adama for a moment as if she'd been asked to defeat the Cylons single-handed, or perhaps raise the dead. But, it had to be asked.

"Sir, we don't even have a full structural damage report yet, but, if I had a fully equipped space dock, with all the parts and labor I needed, I might, _might, _be able to do something in three days, assuming no more surprises. Hanging here in space like this…_if _you can fabricate me what I need, and the workers who understand these sort of systems…I would need at the very least a secton, triple shifts, before we see a single volpon of electrical energy come out of this again." She gestured towards the devastated chamber.

"Captain, could what Engineer Twilly did some time back, the incident with the gyro-stabilizers and their associated electrical systems, have any connection with this?"

"None, sir. The gyro systems aren't even integrated into the grid, except for basic electrical current. When the power failed, the back-up batteries for the gyros kicked in, just like they were supposed to."

"I see." Adama frowned a few more moments. "You realize what this means, Captain. This ship produces almost three-quarters of the Fleet's food. If we don't get those lights and other support systems restored soon…"

"Yes, sir. People are going to starve."

CHAPTER TWO

Adama at once filled Tigh in on the situation, and ordered all the spare energizers available to be brought over to the _Agro Ship_ immediately. Backlogged with orders since departing the planet Ki, the Foundry Ship had so far produced only one, and it was at once rerouted to the crippled vessel. Adama ordered production of the items stepped up, but it still wasn't enough. By the end of the day, the _Agro Ship One_ was still dangerously short of power.

But at least, he told himself, Athena and Boomer were alright. Posted here for the moment as a disciplinary measure due to the stowing away of two primitives from Ki, both Warriors had been helping in the cataloguing of the new plant forms brought from Ki, and the assimilation of the ex-cavedwellers into something resembling modernity. Athena had, with no small difficulty, managed to get Pili to accept the need for wearing contemporary women's clothes when in the company of others, rather than the crude and skimpy wraps made of animal hides. Athena's cheeks still burned a bit at the reactions she had gotten from the primitive woman to certain…articles of female attire. For his part, Boomer was making ever more strides with his charge, the young hunter and Pili's consort, Kudur-Mabug. He would, however, under no circumstances…

_Shave!_

Only, that day had brought more important matters to their attention than sartorial conformity. Kudur-Mabug had been in the midst of explaining to Major Croft's Elite Forces Unit the proper way to make a survival knife, silent, efficient, and deadly, out of a variety of materials likely to be found on primitive worlds. Flint, wood, animal shell or bone, even baked clay were all fodder for his expertise. Since reconstituting the unit for very special missions, Croft had sought to expand his men's abilities beyond mere technology. The way Boomer had adapted to survive on Ki, with only the tools of the natives to fall back on, had impressed the old Warrior. Once the primitives were sufficiently brought up to speed on language and such, he asked and was given permission to tap their knowledge for his expanded survival training course.

For their part, both Kians were more than happy to comply, having been saved more than once by the timely intervention of the Colonials. Croft shook his head, wondering if Corporal Kuntz was _ever _going to get his fingers around that lump of flint without slicing them off, when they felt the rumble of an explosion somewhere, then the lights had gone out, and the alarms sounded. He told his men to remain calm, Boomer doing the same for the primitives, when he began to feel himself float up off the ground.

"I guess zero-G combat _will_ be our second lesson today," …" quipped Sergeant Castor, to the chuckles of all, as he sought to grab hold of a tree branch. As they floated about, they could sense the ship losing velocity, and Boomer looked up, to see through the vast transparent dome some of the other ships in the Fleet begin to pull ahead of them.

"Our engines have stopped," Athena told Pili, in reply to her questions. She took breath for another response, when they all plopped back to the ground, and the ship began to move forward once more. The lights, however, remained stubbornly dark, the emergency illuminators not kicking in for almost a five full centons. When they at last did, they were pitifully weak.

"Okay, let's find out what the Hades Hole happened," said Croft.

What had happened was obvious; the ship's main power systems were blown to frack, and the prognosis was bleak to put it mildly. _Why_ was more mysterious, and while the engineers picked their way through what was left of the ship's equipment, there was even more bad news. The energizer sent over from the Foundry Ship was incompatible with the systems on _Agro Ship One. _Simply put, it was a single-phase unit, and the ship's power systems were multi-phase.

But there was a glimmer. Athena, of all people, had studied electrical engineering rather extensively since the Destruction, and thought she could rig up something she called "a phase converter". Adama shook his head, wondering what other surprises his daughter had in store, but gave her leave to detach from her disciplinary duty, and get to it. It would take at least a couple of centars, but she was confident.

Something Agro-chief Carmichael was not. A brief survey of the ship had confirmed his worst fears. With the lack of power, many of the plants, especially the vital food species, were edging closer to dying with each passing centon. Demeter had given him all the power her ship's ravaged systems could manage, but it was, Carmichael said, like a fumerello lighter in a darkened cathedral.

"Give it to me, " said Adama, frowning.

"Simply put, Commander, the heat is failing, and we'll start to see frost damage in a matter of centars. Added to that, without light, the photosynthesis needed to keep the plants alive will stop, and they will simply…" He waved his hand, to make his point.

"We are working on it, Chief. Our people are going full tilt, to try and…"

"I appreciate that, Commander. And every extra lumen or degree is useful. But, many of those plants will be dead in less than two days, without full, and I emphasize this, _full _restoration of power. Lights, heat, filtration, nutrient flow. The works, Commander."

"Two days, you say?"

"Yes. Some of the hardier species might last three or four days more, but that's it. Within seven days, all but a few plants aboard this ship will be dead. And with it, nearly three-quarters of our food supply."

"I see," said Adama. "I…all I can say, Chief, is that I will do everything I can. But none of us can work miracles."

"Well, that's what we need, Commander. And damn quick. A miracle."

And it looked as if they might actually get one, of a sort. As the engineers sweated and swore trying to do what they could, Adama recalled the last time he had heard Carmichael use the word _miracle. _It had been during the time when the evil and malicious Count Iblis had been aboard the Colonial Fleet. The mysterious lights that had been pursuing him had, it had been theorized, somehow affected the growth of a number of food plants. Some form of energy, hitherto unknown and still unquantified, had caused massive growth, giving the Fleet a temporary surplus of food.

_We certainly could use a surplus of that energy now, _he said to himself, as he poured over the damage reports. As he had feared, it was bad. As he had suspected, it was even worse. Under the best circumstances the Fleet could muster, it was going to take at the very least two sectons to get the power up and running on the _Agro Ship One, _and that wasn't even full power. That was going to take at least twice as long, barring some…well, miracle.

_Beep._

Adama answered. Then, he almost cursed. Sire Antipas, wanting to talk to him, about the current crisis. Some things seemed to travel like sunbursts, despite all his efforts to keep the crisis under…

_Of course! _

"Bridge, this is Commander Adama." He frowned, as Antipas entered without waiting for leave. "Get me Colonel Tigh."

"It was on the star charts we got from the old computers on Ki," said Tigh, in the Ward Room. "Less than four degrees off our present course is a solar system, a Type-G binary, energy output within four percent of the suns in the Colonies."

"Travel time?' asked Captain Apollo.

"At her maximum possible speed," said Tigh, "they could reach that system in just under twenty-one centars."

"The _Agro Ship One'_s main drive is undamaged," said Captain Demeter. " The shut-down was an auto-safety measure, when the flow to the heat exchangers was interrupted. Our fuel bunkers are still nearly full from Ki, so we could make it easily."

"And once there," continued Chief Carmichael, "we assume a position approximate to that of Caprica in orbit about those suns, and begin to rotate the ship along her long axis. The heat and light of suns so similar to what our plants are used to will replace all the artificial light, and allow us to save our food crops, while the repairs are carried out."

"I've got the calculations here, Commander," said Rigel, handing her CO a datapad. "It will work, sir."

"Sounds feasible to me," said Sire Antipas, who had insisted on sitting in on the briefing. Even with the Sire's agreement, Adama still found his presence difficult to tolerate.

"Well, you have to take a chance," said Adama. "Especially when one is all you have." He looked at his son. "Apollo, take a Viper patrol into that system, and see what there is. Civilizations, technology, whatever. We need to know what to expect, there. Captain Demeter, you'd best get started. Once you are on the way, the Fleet will alter course to follow."

"Sir," she replied, and rising, left to rejoin her ship.

"And I shall report to the Council, Adama," said Antipas. "Good work, Commander," he smiled, and Adama again felt in his gut that it was a smile one could never trust. The smile of the successful pickpocket. Still smiling, Antipas turned to leave.

"Sire," said Tigh, as the other left. For a moment, the _Galactica'_s Exec indulged a dark thought or two, and let himself wonder why Sire Antipas couldn't have been standing on the _Agro Ship One'_s energizers when they had blown up. But only for a moment. He looked at Adama, and saw the same reflected in his CO's expression. Adama understood. There was no need for words between them, and Tigh returned to the bridge as well.

"Excuse me?" said Adama, turning to Rigel, her nose deep in a ream of something on her datapad. He had to repeat himself to get her attention.

"Uh, oh, sir. I was just…" She handed him the pad, when he reached out a hand for it. Though Adama always strove to make his subordinates comfortable around him, Rigel had never lost the feelings of awe she had felt upon first being assigned to the _Galactica,_ and meeting the semi-legendary Adama. She felt it again now in capstones.

"Sensor data?" he asked her. She nodded. "Is there a problem with the scanners?"

"No sir. None. It's just this…" she indicated the pad, "won't stop tugging at me."

"A transient radiation spike?"

"Yes, sir. But it somehow, well, it seems somehow too…too regular. Too…"

"Artificial?"

"I don't know, sir. I was going to ask if I could have permission to use the main computer to try and run some enhancements on it."

"You think it's that important?" he asked her, pouring her a glass of water from the carafe on the table, and hoping she'd relax.

"Well sir, it happened within four millicentons of the explosion of the _Agro Ship One. _And I know…I just _know_ I've seen this pattern of spikes before somewhere. I just cannot remember where it was. I did mention it to Colonel Tigh, but he thought it was just a transient spike."

"Well, it's his job to be skeptical. Permission granted, Rigel. I'll call ahead, and have Corporal Komma ready for you."

"Thank you, sir."

CHAPTER THREE

The _Agroship _broke her position in the Fleet, and headed towards the newly discovered suns, accelerating steadily. Apollo and Jolly had already left her far behind, on their way to scout the system for any potential trouble. Normally, Starbuck would have been Apollo's wingman, but he was finally due to give his deposition within the centon to Sire Solon, the Fleet's Chief Opposer. Jolly, who didn't get to fly with Apollo all that much, was happy to get bumped up the duty roster from training missions, and said so.

"It beats just looking at empty space, or waiting for someone to make a mistake," he told Apollo, a few centons into the flight. "At least we know where we're going, Skipper."

"As long as it isn't a Cylon listening post," replied Apollo, with a chuckle. "I just hope everything checks out, Jolly. We can't afford to lose so much as a kernel of grain, let along an entire ship full of our only means of survival."

"I hear ya, Skipper," replied the rotund Warrior.

"And drop the 'Skipper', felgercarb, will you Jolly? We've known each other long enough."

"Anything you say, sir," Apollo could hear Jolly's grin. "Seriously, Apollo..."

"Yes?"

"I can't help but wonder if we'll find more traces of the Thirteenth Tribe here. I mean we did the last time."

"Well, we won't know till we get there, Jolly."

"As long as there are no flying lizard things," said Jolly. "Yuck! Getting shot down by a lizard!"

"A lizard that weighs double what a shuttle does, and has a breath that can set a forest on fire."

"Oh, you mean Sire Uri?" said Jolly, deadpan.

"Jolly…"

"Okay. Like I said, yuck. Anyway, glad I wasn't on that mission. Oh, by the way, how's Athena doing? We haven't heard much, since the Commander sent her and Boomer to…"

"She's okay, Jolly. It'll be a while before she's ready for any more nature hikes, but she and Boomer are doing just fine. Probably more fine than they wanted to be doing, since the Commander keeps extending their assignment because he likes what they've accomplished."

"That's good. Oh, and I know I'm late with this, but congratulations on you and Sheba getting engaged."

"Thanks, Jolly. I know she appreciates it too."

"You two set a date yet for the sealing?"

"No, but it'll be at least a couple sectars minimum. We want this to be special, and just right, and that means a lot of long-term planning. But it doesn't matter, because so long as Boxey's signed on to the idea, that's all that counts."

"I'm glad to hear he had a change of heart."

"It's so odd," Apollo mused, "He was still so intransigent when Sheba and I got back from that deep patrol, but the next morning he was completely changed. But whatever caused that, I'm just glad that hurdle's been cleared."

"That reminds me," Jolly said, "I read the report on that deep patrol of yours and Sheba's, and it was so...imprecise as to what you'd seen."

Apollo was silent for a few microns before he responded, "We didn't see anything worth reporting, Jolly. Just ...nothing. Let's leave it at that."

The corpulent Lieutenant wanted to press further on the matter, but Apollo's tone indicated he didn't want to say anything more about the subject. Knowing his CO as he did, he decided it was better to just let the matter drop.

He glanced back down at his scanner, and then saw there was something that merited his attention more. "Hey, Apollo."

"What?"

"Something on my…hhmm. It's gone. Must have been a glitch."

"What was it?"

"Looked like an energy reading of some kind. Like a…like a ship making a turn." He fiddled with his scanner for a bit, but got nothing. "Nah. Nothing. Must have been a software glitch in the system."

"Well," said Apollo, looking out his canopy, "we're still a good bit out from that solar system, Jolly." Ahead, the binary sun they were headed for was still just a bright dot, only just discernable at this distance as twin stars. "Too far from the suns yet to be solar flares or magnetic field fluctuations."

"Well, nothing else on my scanner, except the solar system ahead."

"Same here. Well, we've got…two and a half centars till we get there, Jolly. Power down."

"Copy, sir. Going into sleep mode."

"Starbuck!" A whirlwind of energy burst through the tiny compartment and leaped into the pair of outstretched arms.

"Hiya, Cassy," the Lieutenant said, lifting the bubbly four-yahren-old off her feet and squeezing her against his cheek. She giggled as he spun her around once, then deposited her back onto the floor.

"So, whaddya bring me?" She gazed expectantly up at him.  
"Cassy!" said a stern voice. "It's not polite or appropriate to expect gifts every time you see someone." Mairwen folded her arms, and the girl shot her mother a sheepish look.

Starbuck laughed. "It's okay." He grinned down at Cassy, who somehow managed to look both eager and contrite at the same time. Kneeling so that he could look her in the eyes, he said, "How could I not bring my favorite girl something?"  
She burst into a huge smile again, and for a brief moment, Starbuck simply gazed at her pretty face. _Ah, to be so young and so innocent . . . _Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small package wrapped in plain white paper and tied with a string.  
The girl took the gift and plopped onto the floor to open it. In a matter of microns, the wrapping had been ripped off to reveal a tiny box. Pulling off the top, Cassy's eyes went wide and she gasped with an "Oooooh!" as she stared at the contents. Then, carefully, she dipped two fingers into the box and lifted out a small necklace, holding it up to gaze at it. A delicate gold chain held a crystal etching of a sun and a moon, surrounded by several stars, and even in the dim lighting of the compartment, the pendant sparkled as it gently rotated on its chain.

Cassy looked as if she would burst. "Oh, Starbuck!" she said, springing to her feet and embracing him around the waist. "You're the greatest! Thank you!"

Starbuck tousled her blonde hair and gave her another quick squeeze. "Can I talk to your mom for a bit?" he said, voice getting conspiratorial. "Ya know...grown-up stuff?"

Nodding, the girl slipped the pendant around her neck and scampered off into the sleeping quarters. A moment later, a head popped around the corner. "Just don't leave without saying goodbye!" she said firmly.  
"Oh course not!" The head disappeared, and Starbuck turned to face her mother.

Mairwen still stood with arms crossed, her head cocked slightly, and her lips curled in a faint frown. "That was very generous of you," she said after a moment. "But you really didn't need to. You're spoiling her."

"I know," Starbuck said, "but I found the necklace while I was browsing through the Market Sector yesterday, and thought it'd be perfect for her. When I was a kid, there was no one to spoil me, so I guess it's my way of making up."

"You really shouldn't . . ." Mairwen started, but let her voice trail off. The frown remained and she looked away.

Starbuck felt taken aback. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He studied her, not understanding the feeling he sensed from her. The previous time he had visited, she had been agitated but had still welcomed him. In fact, she had seemed relieved to see him. And her tension had been understandable, then, because the religious cult, _Il Fadim_, had been bothering the other passengers of the _Sagittarius_. He wondered if the situation had worsened, because this time, he sensed . . . more than just frustration; he got the impression that he was not welcome. "I just wanted to see if things had gotten any better. Or if you need anything."

"I can take care of myself," she snapped and suddenly glared at him. "And I don't need your help!" Starbuck, eyebrows raised, took a step back towards the door, and held his hands up.

"Whoa, I surrender," he said, noticing that Mairwen's sudden anger was just as quickly turning to tears. After a moment, he added quietly, "What's wrong?"

Mairwen took a deep breath, then buried her face in her hands, turning away from him. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I'm so sorry . . . It's just, it's just . . ."  
Starbuck put an hand on her shoulder. When she didn't move, but didn't protest, either, he guided her to a chair at a small, rickety table. After easing her down, he pulled out the other chair and sat, waiting, to give her time to pull her self together. Eventually, she rubbed at her eyes with the palm of her hands and sniffed as she glanced up. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "It's just that I hate . . ."  
"Hate what?" he prompted gently when she dropped her head into her hands again.

"I hate . . ." Mairwen looked up again, and all of the previous anger and frustration had faded, but the look in her eyes haunted Starbuck. Where the last time he had seen her she had seemed hopeful, determined, even, now. . . now her eyes reflected despair.  
"Please, tell me," Starbuck said quietly. "What's going on?"

Mairwen bit her lip and took a deep breath. "I thought this would be better, better than on the _Spica_," she said eventually. "I thought that I could find a way to earn a few more cubits so that I could better provide for Cassy. But I can't do both. I can't care for _her_ and find a job." The tears threatened to well up again, and she paused to brush them away. "I'm so sorry I yelled at you," she after a moment. "I had just finished telling Cassy that we couldn't afford to buy any new shoes for her, let alone a new toy, and then you came . . ." She closed her eyes.

Starbuck touched her arm gently. "Hey, it's okay," he said. She glanced at him, then away. "I'm used to being yelled at," he added. "Happens at least once day. If it's not my Cassie, then it's one of my superior officers. Apollo. The Commander..." He grinned at her when she glanced up again.  
Her lips curled in the faintest of smiles.

"I doubt that. You're too . . ."

"'Fraid you don't really know me," Starbuck said. "Captain Apollo, my squadron leader, has often used the words 'four-yahren-old' to describe me. Maybe that's why I'm so taken with Cassy." He paused, then added quietly, "I thought you'd made some friends on this ship.  
"We have. But things have gotten so tense around here that we don't spend much time in the communal areas. And . . ."

"Are you worried about Cassy's safety?" Starbuck asked. He didn't like where this was headed. Not at all.

"Yes," she whispered. "That's why I haven't dared to leave her with someone while I find work to do. I can't bare to not be with her right now. Because if something -- " She stopped abruptly.

Starbuck felt his blood starting to boil; they'd gone from living on a rickety old sanitation ship to something even worse, it seemed. "Just what's going on?" he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

"It doesn't matter when you go," she said her own anger creeping back into her voice. "There are always seven or eight of those _Il Fadim_ believers in the communal areas. And they won't leave you alone. They wait for people to show up, and then they follow you around – at a distance, mind you, because there are security guards posted around the ship. But they'll ask endless questions and tell endless lies."

"So why don't the guards stop them?"

"Because, technically, they never do anything wrong – except talk to you." Mairwen slapped a palm against the able. "Oh, the guards will tell them to back off, which they do for a bit, but then they go and bother others."

"Has anyone filed a complaint?" .

"Yes!" she whispered fiercely. "But by definition, 'free speech' can't be restricted in a communal area. And they know that. So it's a no-win situation – for the rest of us, anyway."

"So," asked Starbuck, "do you think these _Il Fadim_ types are actually dangerous, or just annoying?"

"They scare me," Mairwen answered, staring at the wall. "It's just a feeling, because they've never done anything or hurt anyone, at least as far as I know personally, but . . ."

"I think you have good instincts," Starbuck said quietly. "Trust them." he glanced at his chrono. "Blast it, I have to go," he said. When she gave him a look that bordered on desperation, he took her hands in his and stared into her eyes. "Look, something will be done about this. I promise. I'm supposed to meet with the Chief Opposer, in fact, in less than 30 centons. I --"

"Are you in trouble?" she asked, sounding concerned.

"No, no. Just wrapping up some official business so some other lice-infested bilge rats can be locked up. Murderers and extortionists."

"Oh," Mairwen whispered, then she stood to let him out.

Starbuck took a moment to say goodbye to Cassy, then paused at the door. "Something _will_ be done," he said. "But it may take a bit of time."

"Okay." Mairwen gave a wan smile. "Thanks."

"Just hang in there, okay?"

"We'll try," she said as he headed out.

The door closed behind him, and Starbuck broke into a trot. He had less than 30 centons to get back to the _Galactica_ for his meeting with Sire Solon. And making the man wait would not go over well, especially if he wanted to seek assistance from him. As he hurried through the corridors of the _Sagittarius_, the Lieutenant fought down the rising ire that he felt. It wasn't fair, not at all. All Mairwen wanted was for she and her daughter to be happy and safe. Neither she nor anyone should have to put up with this kind of felgercarb. It stunk worse than a Borey's breath. And, he decided, he was going to do something about it, one way or the other. His first course of action would be to try to get Mairwen and Cassy off the _Sagittarius_. Period. Maybe he could find a position for her on the _Galactica_. If not, he'd still make damned sure that they got something better. Even if he had to personally search ship to ship for -- _Wait a centon, Buckers! The kiosk! What if...?_

Starbuck rounded the last turn that would lead to the landing bay, his mind lost in his new idea, and collided squarely with a tall man wrapped in a grey shroud.

_"Ooff! What...?"_ The man stumbled, almost losing his footing. Starbuck grabbed his arm to steady him, saying quickly, "Sorry about that! You okay?"

The man stared at the Lieutenant, drilling him with eyes that slowly filled with pure hatred. "The Lords of Kobol will see the Evil Ones in Hades," he spat, pointing a bony finger at the Lieutenant.

"Calm your turbines," muttered Starbuck pulling his hand back as he met the gaze, despite the involuntary chill than ran down his spine. The man was positively creepy.

But instead of letting go, he grabbed the Lieutenant's wrist. "_You_ are sons and daughters of Diabolis! You and your Commander would have the Lost Souls believe that you lead us to our salvation, when you only want our slow and tormented deaths."

Starbuck yanked his arm free. "Look, bud," he said, jabbing a finger at the man's chest with barely contained anger, "if I wasn't already late, I'd stay and explain a thing or two. However --" he shot a glance at his chrono. "Gotta go!"

He turned and headed to the landing bay, running without looking back. "Fracking lunatic," he muttered as he scrambled up into his Viper. Solon was not going to be happy. He tried to focus on his preflight check. Still, the penetrating look in the man's eyes burned in the back of his mind

It felt odd to Athena, as she worked on the phase converter, to look up and not see the other ships of the Fleet surrounding them. It had become "normal", a part of everyday life, to see ships whatever direction one chose to look, and their sudden absence was jarring. She was working in one dome that had virtually no heat and power, now much emptier, many of it's plants and animals removed to the one remaining powered dome to try and save them from the cold. The ship was now at her maximum velocity, Factor 3.5, and she watched the stars streak by for a few moments. She found herself wandering, back to Ki, wondering how the rest of the transplanted primitives were faring in their new home. A small continent, free of other Humans, as well as the horrid reptilians predators, rich, fertile and varied, it held all the Ngishgi, as they had called themselves, needed to thrive and grow.

She just hoped the Cylons never found the planet.

"Huh?"

"I said hand me the tester, please," said Aurora, on temporary assignment from the _Celestra, _to add her expertise to Athena's. Like Athena, she was bundled in a heavy parka, work lights giving almost the only illumination in the chilly dome, her breath starting to get frosty in the stale air. Both women, veterans of Starbuck, nonetheless were finally at peace with their common past, and had slowly become friends over the sectars since the horrible events on the _Celestra, _and the murder of her Master, Commander Cronus.

"Right," said Athena, and did so. Aurora plugged the tester into the circuit board, and all the lights were a happy, welcome green. "Ah. Success."

"Naturally," smiled Aurora. "We aim to please." She unplugged the tester, and slid the circuit board into the chassis of the device, and then plugged a short cable into a port on the side of the energizer. After a few more adjustments, Athena flipped a bank of switches, and the energizer began to hum, and the dials to rise. "Yes!" she crowed, and gave Athena high five, which was returned. Pili, standing to the side, just furrowed her considerable brows, and wondered at the weirdness of such people.

"Bridge, are you getting it?" called Athena into her commlink.

"We are," said Demeter. "Looks good, ladies."

"Sure does," said Athena, as the lights, until now barely glowing a feeble, useless glow, began to brighten slowly. Aurora slid the paddles up, and the lights grew steadily brighter, and they could hear a ventilator start up, somewhere.

"Will get warm again?" asked Kudur-Mabug, arm around Pili. Infuriatingly, he wore only a standard tunic, with no protection against extremes of temperature, a result of a hard upbringing.

_Blast him! _thought Aurora.

"Yes," said Athena, checking the thermometer. Already, the temperature in the dome had increased by a full degree, and the air begun to circulate once more. The lights were up to about half intensity, and they looked about them, surveying the damage.

And damage there was. Leaves with frost damage, half-open blossoms whose future seemed in doubt, once vibrant mosses now sickly-looking. Athena just hoped they had caught it in time. She checked again. Five degrees up, and still rising. She slipped her parka off, and began putting her tools away.

"I think we can kick it up another notch," said Aurora, and Athena nodded. The heat continued to rise, and one by one the water and nutrient pumps kicked on again.

"Full power," said Athena.

"Full power it is," replied Aurora, and she slid the paddles fully up. The new energizer held steady, and soon the dome felt almost as pleasant as before.

"Athena make light!" said Pili, smiling. "Make warm like sun."

" Well, more like about three-fourths like the sun. It'll hold for the moment," replied Athena. "Hopefully until we get the rest of the ship repaired."

"Great magic!" said Kudur-Mabug, looking around at the solar lamps.

"Technology," said Aurora, correcting him. The former hunter looked at her, and thought a moment.

"Tek nawl ogee. Is like magic?"

"Sort of. At times," said Athena, not feeling up to a lesson just this moment, then turned, as Boomer entered, looking dirty and tired. "Boomer. How did it go?"

"It's going to be at least another full day until we get the rest of the wreckage cleared from the main power room. Even at that, we're not even sure the remaining energizer is still any good."

"What about the bulkheads?"

"We finally got some emergency plating welded in place, and could shut down the force field. That'll save some power, but…"

"What?" asked Aurora.

"We found one of the engineers. What was left of him. It was…" he shook his head. "The other two are still missing." There was a moment's silence. "Well, enough doom and futility for one day. Let us celebrate such successes as we have. Would you lovely ladies care to join me in the mess hall?"

"Not until you bathe!" said Athena, and Pili erupted in laughter.

"On course for the binary sun, sir," reported Colonel Tigh. "All ships in formation behind us."

"Excellent. ETA, Colonel?"

"Twenty-nine centars, six centons, sir."

"Excellent, Colonel. Steady as she goes."

"Steady as she goes aye, sir."

"It's beautiful," said Jolly, as they drew close to the twin stars. Both huge yellow balls of light sent tendrils of hot gases out into space, creating a light show of great and terrible beauty.

"Sure is," said Apollo. "Reminds me of the suns at home."

"Yeah," said Jolly, a hint of the wistful creeping into his voice. "Uh, okay. Picking up thirteen planet-sized bodies within range, Skipper. Scanning."

"I read them, too. Transmit all scan data to the _Galactica, _Jolly."

"Establishing link, Skipper."

They flew on, checking out the system. The three outermost worlds were either frozen rock, or frozen gases, dull and uninteresting. Closer in, a gas giant, orbited by three worlds the size of Caprica, seemed more promising. But, said the scanners, they were either void of civilization, or of life altogether.

"Jolly?"

"I see it. Some kind of controlled energy signature, coming from the third planet."

"Let's take a look, shall we?"

"On your wing, Skipper."

CHAPTER FOUR

Rigel felt as if her eyes were going to shrivel up and fall out any micron, she had been staring at this confounded screen for so long. Omega had stopped by on his break, and the two had shared a meager repast, and then it had been back to the instruments. She knew, she _knew, _that she was on to something. It got quite frustrating at times, and she had to remind herself not to rush, but she pressed on, trying every sort of enhancement technique she had ever learned at the Academy, or read about, or dreamed up…

_Yes!_

"The _Agro Ship One_ has one of the highest maintenance scores in the entire Fleet," Adama said, looking out across the huge polished table at the members of the Council. Despite his best efforts to keep a lid on events, it had gotten out, and Sire Antipas had called an "emergency session" to discuss the current crisis. Given the air of insufferable smugness Antipas was radiating, the Commander could not see it as anything other than the latest episode of _Let's Bash Adama! _"Sloppy maintenance is not the cause, Sire."

"Well, the energizers didn't explode for no reason, Commander," said Sire Domra, always one to be counted on for the deep and penetrating analysis of events. "What has your investigation revealed so far?"

"All the debris recovered from the damaged area by Chief Shadrach's team is being studied even as we speak, Sire Domra. But, the three engineers in the power room at the time were lost. Only one body has been recovered, and the main data recorder was destroyed. So, Doctor Wilker's people are having to slowly try and reconstruct the events in his laboratory from very meager evidence. It is a very time-consuming process, as you may imagine."

"Commander," Siress Lydia uncharacteristically spoke up. "This...problem that affected the Agro Ship. Can it conceivably affect the support ships that handle all remaining matters of food supply?"

"No," Adama shook his head, "The _Agroship_, since the disaster prior to our acquisition of new seed at the Serenity Colony, is the only food resource ship in the Fleet built according to these specifications. The Livestock Ships and the supply storage ships are being monitored as a precaution, but the remaining quarter of our food supply is safe for now."

"And you feel, Adama, that this sending of _Agro Ship One _off to orbit some nearby star will save the remaining seventy-five percent?" asked Domra again. Next to him, Sire Gellar rolled his eyes, but held his tongue from the biting comment that came to mind. A veteran Merchant Marine spacer before being injured in a crash and going into politics as Sagittara's Trade Minister, Gellar knew more about ships and what could be done with them than the "politics is mother's milk" Domra ever would.

"At present, it would seem to be our only chance to save a large portion of our vital food stocks, Domra," said Gellar instead. "The Commander's decision is a wise one, given our situation."

"Quite so," Sire Anton, Adama's most stalwart Council ally chimed in. The one-time aide to the late President Adar found it satisfying that Geller was for a change letting his expertise control his thinking, and not blind opposition to Adama as was so often the case. "Your expertise in such matters, my dear Geller, serves you well in this instance."

"I agree," said Siress Tinia, another of Adama's supporters on the Council, since the attempted escape of Baltar, and the near-death of the whole Quorum. Domra snorted quietly at her words, and she glared at him. She held her tongue, though. Like many others on the Council, she realized that Domra's opposition was largely the result of personal animus. The embarrassment of being captured by the Eastern Alliance Enforcers, forced to rescind their edict about Adama's command, and then rescued through military efforts, had rankled him no end. "If the Fleet must detour to save the lives of our people, then so be it. The last time we did, it benefited us all." She looked across the table, and saw Siress Lydia nod in agreement.

"Well, as far as I can see," began Domra once more, clearly annoyed, when he was interrupted.

"As far as _I_ can see, Commander Adama has done far more than could reasonably be expected in this current emergency," said Sire Montrose, standing. "Ships are machines after all, and accidents can happen to best of them. Besides all that, what is done is done, Domra. And if Adama feels that altering course to take advantage of some star in order to save our remaining food supply is the most efficacious way to proceed, then I for one see no reason to question his judgement. It seems to be either that, or starvation."

"Well put, Brother," said Antipas, simultaneously speaking, and somehow never losing his smile as Montrose sat down. "I echo your sentiments."

_What in Hades Hole is he up to? _wondered Adama, sparing Antipas a glance. _Antipas, taking my side? He's the one who called this meeting, and lets Domra rip into me like a butcher knife. Then he defends me? Something stinks. I would sooner expect the Cylons to…_

"But trying to keep the news from the people, perhaps that _was _a bit over the top, Adama," said Antipas, with an avuncular sincerity that made Adama's stomach want to heave. "After all, they _do_ have a right to know. I'm just glad the IFB isn't screaming cover-up."

"And start a panic, Sire?" asked Tinia, with a glint in her eye that told Adama she was not amused. "All we need are hoards of frightened people rioting aboard the various ships, ripping our fragile harmony to shreds. That would bring about our destruction as surely as a Cylon task force. The way the crisis has been handled, that has been averted."

"For now," grumbled Domra, sparing her a sour glance.

"And 'now' is all that we mere mortals can hope for," said Antipas, still sweetly sincere. "I vote that that there is no need for a separate Council investigation of this incident. Commander Adama and his people have the situation well in hand. For the moment."

_You bring it up, then shoot the idea down? What in…_ Adama then shook his head as he remembered his ceremonial duties as President.

"Sire Antipas, am I to assume you just made a formal motion that would require a Council vote?"

"If you like, Mr. President," Antipas shrugged. "I so move."

"And I second," said Montrose, Lydia nodding. Not surprisingly, it went Antipas' way, with only Domra voting against. As the various members filed out of the Council Chamber, Adama remained seated, thinking furiously. Antipas did not make stupid mistakes. That, at least, he had inherited from his late father, even if the honor and integrity had skipped a generation. To call a special session, criticize Adama in veiled terms, then let others do his cutting for him, smelled of intrigue. Then, to top it off, to suddenly play nice, and essentially defeat his own measure didn't smell, it _stunk. _

"I really am your friend, Adama," Antipas had said, as a parting shot, before leaving. Adama scowled, the words feeling like salt rubbed into an open wound. Within centons, all of the other members were gone except for his closest allies, Anton and Tinia.

"Very odd," Anton was shaking his head, "Domra's thickheadedness never surprises me, but when you even have Geller supporting you, Adama, then that really shows how weak this whole presentation was from the outset. Maybe that's why Antipas was quick to defuse matters and end this."

"I disagree, Anton." Tinia said, "Antipas wants something. This whole thing was as stage-managed as the amateur dramatics we did on the _Rising Star _last sectar."

"But without a finish, Tinia," said Adama, at last getting up. "And when someone as…as slippery as Antipas leaves something unfinished, I get suspicious." He took a deep breath. "Well, now that that's all done, I'd be honored if you both would have a drink in the Officer's Club with me, before you head back."

"Doctor's orders, Adama," Anton smiled genially and shook his head. "My days of partaking of good drink are alas, quite numbered."

"Of course," Adama returned it. "Tinia?"

"I think so, Commander," she smiled. "In fact…"

_Beep_

Adama answered the IC at the conference table. It was Rigel.

The third planet of the binary system was a habitable one, though Apollo was in no mind to start staking any real estate claims. About 60 covered with water, the planet's land areas were largely forest, jungle, desert, or bog, without much variety between them. He and Jolly had split up, Jolly taking a polar orbit, he an equatorial one, and started scanning the surface. Before more than a few centons had passed, they had found something.

"Settlements, Skipper," said Jolly, on a low-band, scrambled channel, just in case someone in the area had ears. "Along that coastline just north of the equator. The big continent."

"I see 'em, Jolly," replied the Captain. "Small cities. Densely populated." He adjusted his scanner. "Not Human, though."

"And primitive too, from the looks of it, Skipper. I'm not reading any advanced technology in or around those settlements."

"Me neither, but we have to be sure, Jolly. Oh, and by the way?

"Yeah, Skipper?"

"Quite calling me 'Skipper' all the time. Okay?"

"Okay, Sk…uh Captain."

They both kept scanning, but neither picked up indications of satellites, old or new, electrical power grids below, or any form of controlled radiation. After a few orbits, they decided to descend into the atmosphere, and have a closer look.

The bulk of the settlements detected were in a broad plain cut by rivers, sandwiched between a range of rugged mountains, and the sea. Patches of scraggly forest were interspersed with areas of cultivated land, or open and empty wastes. Crude roads linked many of the settlements, settlements constructed for the most part of what seemed to be mud-brick, timber, and hewn stone. Primitive watercraft, powered by sails and oars, plied the coastal waters.

"About mid to late First Millennium, wouldn't you say?" asked Apollo, as they dropped down to under 20,000, and concentrated scans on one of the larger townships.

"Looks like it," agreed Jolly. "I remember seeing something like that in a book when I was in school. Some ancient ruins on Virgon or wherever."

"Me too." Apollo rechecked his scanner. "There's some cloud cover, Jolly, over that large town. Let's drop down for a really close look."

"On your wing, Apollo," replied the other. Both men flew their Vipers lower, till they were audible from the ground. A rainstorm was just clearing over a large area, and they used the clouds to obscure their ships from those on the ground. Both Vipers made close passes, then another one. This time, someone caught sight of them, and Jolly had to chuckle at one native who, instead of running in fear, actually threw a stone at them!

"I think we'd better go, Jolly," laughed Apollo, "before the natives decide to declare war."

"Lords of Kobol, but they're ugly, aren't they?" Jolly zoomed in on the image he'd taken during the last pass. The native creature had at first looked somewhat manlike, but that was only at a distance. They had bald heads, with fangs, and hands that looked more like claws than fingers. Jolly could see no indications of gender, but the images were still to be enhanced.

"Don't let Zara on IFB hear you say that," said Apollo. "She'll do a special on Viper pilots, and our bigoted and insensitive response to non-Humans."

"Lips are sealed."

_They aren't as ugly as what Sheba and I saw recently, Jolly_, Apollo thought. _And I just hope to God that you never see those kinds of beasts for as long as you live._

"Okay," said Apollo, watching the land sweep by under them, "let's get out of this rainstorm, shall we?"

"Sounds good to me, Skipp…Apollo," replied the other pilot. As a matter of personal taste, Jolly didn't care for rain much, having spent most of his life either in a dry climate, or aboard ships. He pulled back on his stick, and was soon out of the weather, then out of the atmosphere. As he tried to re-establish his bearings, there was a blip. "There it is again, Apollo," he said.

"What?"

"That weird energy reading."

"Just like before?"

"Yeah," replied Jolly, as they turned, and started back towards the Fleet. "I could swear it was artificial, then it was gone. Almost like we were being scanned."

"I missed it again," said Apollo, putting his Viper on auto-control, and giving full attention to his scanners. "Okay, I see it, Jolly. Just a micron's burst, then it's gone." He kept scanning, after the spike had disappeared, but the scope remained clear, all the way to the _Agro Ship One, _just coming into range now. "I think it's just a weird energy fluctuation from these suns, Jolly. But we'll look at it closer when we get back to the _Galactica._ When we get back, the ambrosia's on me." Apollo took the Viper off auto-control, and resumed flying her himself. "Well? Jolly?" There was no answer, and Apollo called again. Still nothing, and with a frown, he checked his communit. All seemed well. He looked out his canopy, over to Jolly's fighter "Hey, Jolly, did you… _WHAT THE FRACK?"_

Still on course besides his own, Jolly's Viper was flying as it always had, seemingly undamaged.

Only Jolly wasn't in it.

CHAPTER FIVE

Adama sat, in the _Galactica'_s computer lab, in the room where once recon scans had been analyzed and assessed for Fleet Intelligence, and looked at what Rigel had to show him. Omega sat next to her, Corporal Komma ever hovering on the outer marker, ready if needed.

"As I said Commander," she was continuing, "I could not stop thinking about this, so I began running a wide range of enhancement programs on it. Later, I asked Omega to help me. I got copies of the scan tapes from seven other ships, sir, corresponding to that time."

"Yes, sir," said Omega, in response to Adama's look. "I attached an extra fine tuning to our scanners, and re-routed all scans through a buffered telemetry demodulator. Any new data will be processed, run through and processed again, as many times as it takes to extract every fragment of data."

"And I was working here," resumed Rigel, "while he was on the bridge. I knew I had seen something similar to this before, and then I remembered. Back at the Academy, studying cloaking theory. Anyway, sir, after seventeen different enhancement schemes, I found an old, disused variation on a shape-to-shading algorithm." She directed his attention to a monitor. "After enhancing each one, I overlaid all the scans, and got this." On a screen was the scan of the Fleet he'd seen before. Then, after she worked a few controls, it all changed. All the ships disappeared, and after a few microns, there it was.

"What is it?" asked Adama. Almost at once, he regretted it, as Rigel launched into another rush of techno babble, but he endured it.

"This here," said Rigel, pointing to a smeary spot on her screen, "is less that twenty-five metrons from the _Agro Ship One, _Commander. It corresponds according to both coordinates, and time index coding, to the radiation spikes we detected." She turned around, and looked at him. "A ship, Commander."

"And not one of ours, sir," said Omega. The image was blown up to the limits of the program's resolution. The smudge in the blackness of space was recognizable as symmetrical, about the length of three shuttles, and matching the _Agro Ship One'_s course and speed. Beyond that, it told Adama little.

"Cylons?" came the inevitable question.

"I don't think so, sir," said Rigel. "I ran a comparison with all known forms of Cylon camouflage and ECM. This matches none of them. Cylon power plants produce very little in the way of detectable gamma ray emissions, Commander. Whoever this is, I honestly don't think they're Cylons."

"So," said the Commander, "we have a shadow. Origin and purpose unknown, and possessing cloaking technology. Did they attack the _Agro Ship_?"

"No indication of any weapon's signatures known to us, sir," said Omega, "and no signs of external penetration of the ship's hull. All the damage is from the inside out, sir. And we've seen no signs of them, since the explosion. As to whether they caused it, I can't say, sir. Without knowing more about their technology, we're groping."

"Very well. Good work, you two," said Adama. "Keep on it." He rose, announced he would be in Wilker's lab, and left.

Being on a different vector, Apollo did not pass close to the _Agro Ship One _on his way back to the _Galactica. _After finding his wingman gone, he had performed all the standard search procedures. But the canopy was still in place, the Viper's life support system was still functioning properly according to the telemetry, and there was no sign of a body in space anywhere near the fighter, or along their course back to the planet. Apollo conducted several sweeps of the area, and after coming up empty time after time, reported events to the _Galactica. _Linking his computer to the one in Jolly's ship, he put it on a vector for the Fleet, and then headed home himself, turbos screaming.

"What is it?" asked Boomer, as Athena returned from the ship's commstation. He face was drawn, and she looked worried.

"Apollo's patrol into the system we're headed for ran into trouble. One of the pilots is missing."

"Missing?" asked Boomer, half-rising out of his chair. "Who?"

"I don't know. That's all I could get out of Core Control."

"Core Control," snorted Boomer. "About as helpful as an abscessed…" He got up, and headed for the commstation.

"Boomer?"

"Going to call someone on the _Galactica. _Some people still owe me a favor or two."

Since it was pilotless, Jolly's Viper had to be brought aboard remotely. Being apparently undamaged, and with the transponder circuits still on-line, it could land via telemetry link, and Alpha Bay's LSO handled the proceedure without a hitch. But, even as it was coming into visual range of the Fleet, Apollo was already in the Ward Room, being debriefed by the Commander.

"All standard sweeps showed nothing, and the atmospheric seals were intact, so I have to assume Jolly was teleported out in some fashion," he said, summing up.

"Teleportation?" asked Tigh, across the table from Apollo. "As in matter transference?"

"It's the only thing I can think of to describe it," replied Apollo. "Jolly was…"

"Commander Adama," came a voice. "This is Master Chief Varica, in the hangar bay."

"Yes, Master Chief?"

"We've brought Lieutenant Jolly's Viper aboard, sir, and we've popped the canopy."

"Yes?"

"I'd…I'd rather not put this on the speaker, Commander."

"I'll be there, Master Chief. Has Doctor Wilker…"

"Already called him, sir."

"Good work, Master Chief. On our way." Adama clicked off, and rose. "Gentlemen?"

They all followed Adama to the hangar where the Vipers were serviced and maintained after each mission. There, being swarmed over like a lump of sugar by apions on a hot day, was Jolly's ship. As the Commander approached, Varica moved to met him.

"What have you got?" asked Adama, and Varica showed him. In the cockpit of the Viper, on the seat, was Jolly's helmet. Underneath it was his uniform jacket, tunic, trousers, and his boots were still on the pedals. Adama just stared at the pile of clothes for a while, then reached in, and picked up the helmet. Sure enough, inside was printed Jolly's name, in his wandering script.

"This has got to be the weirdest thing I've seen, ever," said Tigh. Like Adama, he had reached in, and pulled out Jolly's flight jacket. Like the helmet, and the ship itself, it was undamaged. As they poured over this mystery, Wilker entered the hangar, and was brought up to speed. Despite original appearances, the ship had suffered some damage. The voice circuits, the attack scanner, and the capacitor bank for the port laser were all dead. Burned out.

"Doctor," said Adama, dropping the helmet back into the cockpit, "I want every possible test and scan you can think of brought to bear on this ship, and this uniform. I don't care how bizarre or unorthodox it may seem. Do it. Anything might provide us with an answer."

"I'll get on it right away, Commander," replied the scientist. Moving away from the ship, Adama got that deep frown that told Apollo that his mind was working furiously.

"Father?"

"Is Starbuck through deposing to Sire Solon?"

"I think so." He looked at his chrono. "You need him?"

"Yes. And Sheba too."

"She's on patrol."

"Bring her to my quarters when she lands. All of you."

"Right away, sir."

Whatever it was, it wasn't right. It was bright, it was blurred, and something smelled really, _really _bad. Still, he tried to focus, and took a deep breath. Slowly, the image began to focus, and he saw…

_A bucket? _

With more effort, Jolly tried to move, and felt various parts of his body respond. _What in Hades Hole is wrong? _he thought. _Why can't I seem to…_ Then he did, and brought his legs under him. He'd been lying on his stomach, and he brought his arms in, and tried to push himself up into a sitting position. He succeeded, and rubbed his bleary eyes, until he could make out his surroundings.

"Frack!" he said, as things became clear. He was squatting on a dirt floor, in a room that seemed stiflingly hot, the air still and reeking of something horrid. As he looked around some more, he also became aware that he was naked, and the sweat was pouring off him like mad. He tried to stand…

And his head started to swim like after a night of too much pyramid and ambrosia. He tried to take a deep breath, and made another effort, and finally got to his feet. The room was crudely built, being primarily of mud bricks, and filled with items equally crude, the source of the stench being the bucket. He didn't need to look to know what it contained, and turned away. High up in the walls were narrow windows, blocked by iron bars, and a few steps away was a rustic bunk, with a rag on it that looked as if it had fed generations of insects.

Steadier now, he looked down. No, he wasn't entirely naked. His undershorts seemed to have stayed with him, though that only seemed to add to the mystery. He heard a noise, and turned. The wall behind him wasn't a wall at all, but another set of bars, separating him from another, identical cell.

_Jail? _

"Hey!" he called, his voice hoarse and choppy. He tried to swallow, and began again. In the cell next to his, was someone else, sprawled out on their own bunk. While they were built along the same lines, he couldn't tell it they were Human or not. While not naked, they wore few clothes, and seemed deeply tanned. He called again, but the other prisoner did not stir. He wondered for a moment if they might be dead, but close study showed him they were still breathing. He called again, but was distracted by the sound of a door opening. He turned, and saw a small wooden door, reinforced by rusty iron bands, opening, and someone came through.

"_OH FRACKING HADES!"_

Before Adama allowed Starbuck and Tigh to enter his quarters, he insisted on speaking to Apollo and Sheba alone, first.

"I have to know Apollo, if the circumstances surrounding Jolly's disappearance bears any resemblance to what happened to you and Sheba aboard that Derelict ship, which is still an off-the-record matter. Because if the two events _are_ connected, there's going to be more trouble than we could ever have imagined."

"Father, there's no similarity at all," Apollo was shaking his head vigorously. "This isn't how Iblis would operate. He wouldn't repeat himself that way. That I'm sure of. After what he tried to pull with that Derelict lure, whatever he'd try next would be a lot more subtil than this."

"All right," Adama nodded, "Let's say I grant that point. What about Jolly being snatched to another dominion by...well, by a positive force? You and Sheba have been through that kind of experience."

"That was nothing like this, Commander," said Sheba. "The creatures on the Ship Of Lights spoke to us. There was light everywhere. And, we still had all our clothes on, while we were aboard it."

"And our ships weren't left just floating in space, either," added Apollo. "And when we returned, there was no damage to either the Vipers or the shuttle."

"All right," Adama nodded, "That settles that matter." He pressed the chime and allowed Starbuck and Tigh to enter, the two of them both befuddled over why they'd had to wait outside. Starbuck still had his dress uniform on since he'd been required to wear it for his deposition at the murder tribunal.

"As a result of my conversation with Captain Apollo and Lieutenant Sheba, I am convinced that Lieutenant Jolly's disappearance is not the result of something or someone familiar to us. And that's all I plan to say about that for the time being. What I need now is all of your expertise and input regarding our response to what can only be classified as a new and completely unknown danger."

"That's hard to say, Commander, since it would appear that we're dealing with another group or race entirely," said Tigh. "A group that can snatch any one of us at any time."

"But leaves a trace," said Apollo, looking over the datapad that contained Rigel and Wilker's analyses. "From the data, there seems to be some kind of energy trace left on the clothing of the kidnapped people. Jolly's uniform, the seat in the Vipereven some cloth fragments recovered from the destroyed energizer room. Their…quantum state seems to have been altered in some way we can't quantify yet. And it interferes with our systems, whatever it is."

"I noticed that," replied Sheba. "Every time this whatever it is occurs, systems are damaged. Their technology and ours don't seem to mesh."

"No they do not," said Adama, taking the pad back from his son. "And thus there is a double danger."

"And we're headed right towards that system," said Tigh. "About which we have no choice."

"Not unless we want to starve," said Adama. He lifted another report. "The latest report from the _Agro Ship One _is not good. It will take longer than expected to bring the only surviving energizer back on-line. The one Athena and Aurora rigged up is strained to the very limit now."

"How long until they come within range of the stars, Commander?" asked Sheba.

"Another five and a half centars, Lieutenant. We just have to hope that the crops last until then."

"What about Jolly?" asked Starbuck, the words nearly exploding out of his mouth. "I mean we can't just leave him to…whatever, Commander. We have to find him."

"Until we know more about who or what took him, Lieutenant," said Tigh, "we have no sure course of action for finding him."

"Or from seeing that it does not happen again," said Sheba.

But there was a way. Sort of. Rigel's data had given Wilker a clue. Most of the ships in the Fleet that had deflection screens ran with them down, to save on precious fuel, raising them only during Cylon attacks. Some shields, like those of the _Galactica, _were of military rating. Most of the rest of the Fleet had whatever the original builders had deemed necessary, or they had managed to cobble together.

However, standard Colonial shield frequencies could, according to Wilker's simulations, block whatever it was. He was slow to mention that the data upon which he had based this was wafer-thin, but Wilker was never one to trumpet his own shortcomings. So, Adama ordered every ship to raise its screens, and bring them to maximum power until further notice.

Sadly, it was not to be enough.

"When?" asked Adama, trying to keep his voice even.

"Five and a half centons ago," replied Colonel Tigh, on the bridge. "I was informing the _Hegal'_s Captain of the situation, when he disappeared." Tigh flipped some switches, and replayed the scan. One micron, the man was there, on the screen. The next, he had faded out in a wash of smeary light.

"The rest of the _Hegal'_s crew?"

"No response, sir."

"Send a Security detail to…"

"Already ordered, Commander."

The _Hegal_ was one of the Fleet's newest additions, having been scavenged from the system containing the planet Ki. A very large ore barge, it had been found on one of the system's long-abandoned asteroid mining stations, reactivated, and added to the Fleet. Once empty of her vast load of desperately needed metal ores, the ship had been slowly converted to carry extra livestock, expanding the Fleet's food production capabilities. Her ancient engines had been upgraded, her cargo holds refitted and subdivided, until she now held hundreds of head of various kinds of food animals, and a crew of forty-one. With their families, _Hegal'_s total compliment now reached sixty-two.

Or had. Now, she was empty, save for the livestock. Adama found the ship spooky as he walked her corridors, most of them newly constructed from plates turned out by the Foundry Ship. A pile of tools lay in one hatchway, right where they'd been dropped when their user had vanished, his clothing next to them. On the bridge, piles of tools and electronic parts were scattered about, the same in engineering with the eerie piles of clothing scattered on the decks.

"The computer put her on autopilot," said Tigh, next to the helmsman's post on the bridge. "Whatever happened, it was so fast, no one had time to react."

"Just like Jolly," said Adama, looking around the bridge. A skeleton crew was already taking over the ship's operations, and her flight recorder data was already being analyzed. "If only we'd had her screens in place."

"It got a low priority, Commander," replied Tigh. "With all the work needed to refit her for livestock use, her screening was put way down the list."

"Damnation!" swore Adama. "Colonel, inform all ship masters that from this micron, shield power and integrity has top priority."

"Yes sir," replied Tigh. The Colonel was about to call in the order, when one of the Warriors came up, and reported.

"Sir, we have a survivor."

CHAPTER SIX

_Agro Ship One _was already beginning to feel the affects of the approaching solar system. Demeter had already had to make two minor course corrections, telling the Warriors that they were now within the system's gravity well. The suns were now clearly two distinct stars, and one of the outer planets was the size of a coin, in the upper left quadrant of the dome.

"How long until we get close enough to the suns to do some good?" asked Croft, going over his men's performance evaluation reports in the mess hall. A half-empty cup of java sat next to his elbow.

"Captain Demeter says we'll start feeling some serious heat in about two centars," replied Boomer. "We should have the ship inserted into the proper orbit in three."

"Good," said Croft, never looking up from his reports. Boomer regarded the man for a moment. Since the Arcta mission, he had had little contact with the one-time convict, save for the rescue events on Ki. He decided that he liked the Special Forces leader, not only for his expertise (it was rumored that Croft knew twenty-three ways to take out a Cylon Centurion bare-handed, and at least as many ways of killing live opponents), but for his deep loyalty to those around him. The intense and powerful emotions he had felt upon the death of his estranged wife, Leeda, had been real enough for all to see. The extreme professionalism with which he buried those feelings, and continued with the mission had impressed Boomer even more. If ever, he decided, he needed a covert ops man at his side…  
"Hi!" said Athena, wafting in to the mess hall.

"What's up?" asked Boomer, sliding over to make a space for her.

"Update from Demeter. We'll settle into the plotted orbit four and a half centons earlier than forecast."

"And none too soon," said Boomer. "That energizer you and Aurora rigged is red-lining like crazy. Hopefully the coolant pump will last until we make it there." He fell silent, staring into his soup, and scowling. Athena noticed it.

"Boomer?"

"Just…thinking about Jolly. Is he okay? Is…"

"I know, Boomer. I'm worried too."

"You knew Jolly at the Academy, didn't you?"

"Yeah I did," she replied. "And while he may not impress some people, I know Jolly. He's a man who can take care of himself."

Never in his life had Jolly actually held a sword. He'd seen them, of course, in museums, in his uncle's antique collection, and in old holovids. As a kid, he'd always liked the old swashbuckler epics, especially the _really_ old ones, starring a ruggedly handsome actor named Flynn, that went back to the days not only before color film, but before holotechnology itself. But to find himself, with one in his hand, and a very nasty, ugly opponent headed towards him, similarly armed and obviously out for blood, well, that was different.

The door to his small prison had opened, and a person had entered. Well, he assumed it was a person. The being was about his height, and built along the basic Humanoid lines, but the similarity ended there. Its skin was a dull greenish-gray, mottled here and there with pale yellow splotches. It was bald, with pointed ears that seemed to be too big for its head. A long pointy nose filled the center of the face, above a mouth with black lips, and sharp, crooked teeth. The eyes…

Lords of Kobol, those eyes! They were slightly bulbous, and rimmed in black skin beneath heavy brow ridges. The whites were actually yellowish, and the pupils as black as Baltar's heart. Their overall effect, when they looked at him, was to instill a deep, almost primal fear, as if the boogeyman of childhood nightmares had at last crawled out from under the bed. It looked Jolly up and down, and laughed, hands on hips. It was neither a pleasant sound, nor sight. The creature's lips drew back, to reveal a mouth full of crooked, stained teeth, and spewed forth a cackle like a patient dying of lung failure.

"_Shedbeck! Di shebbla bi ushdraw!" _which of course Jolly understood not a word. When he just stood, staring at the hideous thing as much out of shock as of morbid curiosity, it spoke again, this time in a harsher tone.

"I don't understand you," Jolly managed to get out at last. This did not seem to impress his jailer, for the creature moved up to the bars, and tossed through a bundle. It hit him, and fell to the floor. _"K'geesk!" _Jolly picked them up, and saw that they were clothes of some sort. Some kind of breeches made of a rough cloth, with a belt of some sort of leather. From this sprang a tunic that came up to wrap around one shoulder, the left, leaving the other bare. They smelled _really _bad, but the creature's desire was obvious, and the Warrior found that he preferred it to being naked. As he slipped the filthy garments on, after shaking them out vigorously, the jailer bellowed something loudly, and two more of the ugly creatures entered, both considerably larger than the first. The jailer withdrew an iron key from his belt, and unlocked both cells. One of the hulking uglies roused the person in the next cell, or rather yanked him onto the floor by a violent jerk to one arm, and the other took hold of Jolly, clapping some sort of shackle on one arm, and binding him to the other prisoner. This prisoner, though Humanoid as well, was not of the same species as the jailer, and one of the hulking things drug both captives out of the cells and down a long hall, to a gloomy basement sort of place, filled with dirt and more small cells.

"Lords of Kobol," muttered Jolly. In one cell was a tripod brazier, burning brightly, in the next the sound of hammers ringing on an anvil reverberated loudly. Several of the native creatures were working at this forge, apparently turning out swords and other bladed weapons.

"_Bleketh!" _snarled one of his guards, and smacked Jolly on the side of the head. Almost without thinking, he responded by striking the creature back. Whether by strength or surprise, his blow knocked the thing down, and it went sprawling, knocking over a small table. The other two hulking guards at once grabbed the Viper pilot by the arms, twisting them to the point of pain, while the other one regained his feet. The jailer approached Jolly, wiping black blood from his face, and one didn't need to be an expert on aliens to see the fury in the creature's eyes. It moved closer, and spat out a string of words that Jolly felt certain weren't an invitation to dinner. Taking a small whip of leather cords from a rack on the wall, the jailer closed in on him, letting the whip uncoil onto the floor, and then cracking it loudly in the Warrior's face. His face slowly broke into a cruel grin, and he raised his hand…

And got no further. Jolly, using his guards for leverage, raised his legs up, and slammed his heels into the other's gut. The creature's breath exploded out of its lungs, and with a squeal of pain, sailed back into a rack of weapons. The creature screamed, a sound out of childhood nightmares, and blood spurted from its mouth as something stuck through the chest. It staggered a bit, looked at Jolly with eyes full of pure hate, and fell to its knees, back skewered by a long thin-bladed dagger. With another gasp of hatred, the turnkey fell forward onto his face, and was still.

"Oh mong," said Jolly. "I'm fracked!"

Only he wasn't. At least not yet. One of his guards had struck him across the face, spewing out more words he could not understand, holding a knife to his belly, when another of the foul creatures came over, and looked down at the dead jailer, then up at Jolly. He motioned to someone off in the shadows, and two more emerged, and drug the corpse away. Then, he looked at Jolly, eye to eye. While this one was as ugly as any of the rest of these creatures, he seemed calmer, or perhaps more deliberate, than the rest. He seemed to study Jolly for a few moments, stroking his chin as if in thought. He poked and prodded Jolly, as if testing him like a piece of meat at the butcher shop.

"Hey! Knock it off unless you want some of the same, astrum h…" He stopped, as the other grabbed his face, squeezing his mouth and turning his head this way and that. After a few moments the examiner nodded, and called to someone Jolly couldn't see. He was unshackled from the other prisoner, drug along the corridor some more, and then into a room with somewhat more light. Another of these horrid things, this one dressed ridiculously in weird colored robes, scurried, or rather oozed, on up to the examiner, and the two exchanged rapid words. Then, the big one reached into a pouch in his belt, and withdrew some coins. They changed hands, and the garishly dressed one smiled, and disappeared.

_D'uookh!" _said the fellow in charge, looking at Jolly, and ordered him brought along. In another room, he was given a sword, a small round metal shield was fixed to his left arm, and he had a helmet put on his head. A few moments later, he found himself standing on the sandy floor of an arena, the stands above him filled with God knew how many screaming "people".

And someone with a sword heading right towards him.

"I have no idea, Commander," said Harper, the sole remaining member of the _Hegal_'s crew. "Chief Engineer Bema sent me into compartment three, to double check the magnetic restrictor coils. They work, but the design is ancient, so it's taking us longer than expected to bring her drive up to full Colonial specs, Commander. They were a little misaligned, so I fixed them. When I came up to check in with him, he didn't answer. Then I found out that I was alone."

"And you heard nothing at all?" asked Adama.  
"Not a thing, sir. But…"

"But what, Chief?"

"Well, just as I got the last of the coils back on-line, there was a spike."

"Spike?" asked Tigh.

"In the instruments. There was a spike on several gauges, like extra current was being

pumped through. Then," he snapped his fingers, "it was gone, sir. Like that." He handed his data pad to Tigh. The _Galactica'_s XO frowned.

"The time index matches exactly the moment the _Hegal'_s crew vanished, sir," he said, showing the data to Adama. "Whatever snatched them, it was the same thing as took Jolly, and wrecked the _Agro Ship_'s power systems."

"What is the status of the _Hegal'_s systems now, Harper?"

"I'm still running diagnostics, Commander. But so far, I can't find any damage, aside from one blown storage capacitor in Engineering. Everything else is tip top."

"That's strange, sir," said Tigh. "Both Jolly's Viper and the _Agro Ship One _had blown systems aboard. But here…"

"Yet another mystery, Tigh. And I've got a belly full already. Fleet's status, Colonel?"

"We are just under three centars behind Captain Demeter. The helm has already plotted to put us into the same orbit, behind her.

"Very well," said Adama, obviously trying to control his anger. "Very well Colonel. See to the expediting of shields for the ship. What is the state of the livestock aboard?"

"All fine and unharmed, sir. It seems whoever it was only wanted Human prey."

"And here we are, headed right into it, whatever _it _is. What a day."

Jolly had bare moments to recover from the shock of finding himself facing an alien opponent trying to kill him, and with a sword to boot. But, he was not one of the few surviving Colonial Warriors in the universe for nothing. Even before the other creature had moved ten paces in his direction, his mind began to recall his hand-to-hand survival instruction from the Colonial Academy. He tensed, trying to remember that the sword he held was, in one sense, just a very big knife, and he had scored well in using the one issued before survival class.

_Let your opponent waste energy getting to you if possible,_ his old instructor had said. The other creature was running and screaming, waving its weapon around over its head wildly and without apparent discipline. Trying to frighten him, perhaps? Some kind of psychological tactic? Fine. Jolly would let the screaming berserker carry on with his antics. He tensed every muscle, momentarily wishing he'd spent more time in the _Galactica_'s gym, and less in the OC, and took deep breaths of air. It was thinner than what he was used to, but one must make do with the tools at hand. He watched his opponent approach, sword raised, screaming, and slowly raised his own blade. He held it level with his eyes, arm tensed almost to the point of pain, and waited. Closer and closer the other thing came, till he could see its eyes through the bronze helmet. Even hidden so, Jolly could see the bloodlust in them. This was someone who _liked_ to kill, and from all the scars on his body, had indulged that lust many a time.

Closer and closer he came, the pounding of his feet raising big puffs of choking dust from the arena's floor. Jolly held still, letting him approach, nearer and nearer, hoping that his own shaking wasn't showing. He felt the sweat running off of him, and hoped the blade didn't slip in his hand when the time came to use it in earnest. Closer. Closer. And…

"Orbit attitude," said the helmsman on the bridge of the _Agro Ship One._ "We are precisely the mean distance from the outer sun as that of Caprica back home, Captain."

"Excellent, Cleon. Initiate rotation burn, then deploy solar arrays. Alden, inform the _Galactica._"

"Right away, Captain," replied the comm officer. As he did so, Demeter opened a channel to Carmichael's station, in one of the domes. She got Athena instead.

"How're we doing?"

"Fantastic, Captain," replied Athena. "The sun's just now coming into view, the temperature is starting to rise normally, and the light is perfect. We're throttling back on the emergency energizer now. Diverting power to other systems. How are the solar arrays?"

"On-line and in the green. Thanks a lot ladies. Where's Chief Carmichael?"

"Checking out some damaged foliage on some fruit trees, last I saw him. Shall I get him for you?"

"Yes. And when you folks are through there? The ambrosia is on me, in the cafeterion."

"Yes, _ma'am!_" said Aurora, her voice clear in the background." Demeter clicked off, and returned to her instruments. "Status, helm?"

"All green, ma'am. Ship's rotation now exactly matching that of Caprica."

"Excellent. Adjust gravity and inertial damping systems to compensate for our spin." She rose. "I'll be in the cafeterion if you need me, Cleon. And don't take your eyes off those scanners."

"Ma'am."

"Like home," said Kudur-Mabug, watching the first of the twin suns rise above the edge of the "ground" in the dome. Already, the dome was filled with natural light, the bulbs shut off for now, and the warmth of the alien star was filling the air with a welcome embrace. "To see…_utu…_uh, you call _sun_, come up over hills."

"You make sun come?" asked Pili, of Boomer. The Viper pilot tried to explain, remembering that each of the Kians still had only about a hundred words or so of Colonial Standard down, few of them technical in nature, and their grasp of the grammatical rules…well.

"Well, we are moving into orbit around a new star," he explained slowly, describing the mechanics of the operation as simply as their vocabulary would permit, with diagrams sketched in the dirt. They were apt students both of them, blessed with a natural intelligence, but Boomer wondered how _he _would fare, having to go from Stone Age to Seventh Millennium, in next to no time at all. As he continued, the second sun in this binary system began to climb into view, and both Kians looked at it in shock. Boomer explained that as well, then it was off to the cafeterion. All the while wondering…

_Where in Hades is Jolly?_

"_Ahhhhhhhhhh!"_ screamed the other creature, sword drawn back for a killing thrust. Jolly let it come, then sidestepped slightly, but with great speed. The sword missed him, and he grabbed the other's sword arm just above the wrist, holding it as tightly as he could, while bringing up one knee. The other screamed in pain as his elbow was wrenched by the impact, and his fingers opened in a spasm of agony. Pivoting on one heel, Jolly spun the two of them around, then let go, hurling the other away. The alien staggered, but kept his feet.

Without a sword. Jolly had grabbed it as it fell from the other's nerveless fingers, and now held one of the primitive weapons in each hand. He tossed one away, as far as he could, and heard it land on the far side of the arena. His opponent turned, as if to retrieve it, but Jolly was having none of it. As the other was obviously still in pain and shock from the injury to the arm, Jolly swung around once more, and struck. His blade slashed deeply across the other's back, eliciting another scream of pain. It whirled back around with surprising speed, even as blood oozed from the wound and sprung, but Jolly was ready. Dropping the shield from his arm, he gripped the sword's hilt with both hands. His lungs were burning from the low oxygen, but he had no choice. Taking the biggest breath he could, he hacked with all his strength, and the creature's right arm was sliced off below the elbow. It screamed even louder, face a rictus of agony, but still seemed determined to continue. Jolly had stepped back, lowering his blade, signaling that he was willing to let his opponent go. This was enough, he told himself. Cylons were one thing, but this was no robotic enemy. It was…

Still trying to kill him. It lunged at him, eyes burning with savagery and hate, clawed fingers extended. It succeeded only in skewering itself on Jolly's blade, the black-stained sword going completely through the other's body. Its knees began to buckle, and Jolly withdrew his weapon. The thing looked up at him, and with its remaining arm, pulled off the helmet. Of the same race as the others here, it looked at Jolly with an expression he could not read, and then screamed once more, clawed nails slashing close to his knees. Jolly leaped back, and brought his sword up, and then down with all the strength he could muster. He felt the resistance of flesh and bone, then the sword swing free as the creature's head flew off to roll in the dust. For a moment, the Viper pilot just stood there, trying to assimilate what he'd done. He'd actually killed someone, something he had never done before. Cylons without number, yes, but…

He looked up, at the crowd of disgusting creatures, all of them screaming and cheering. Apparently, they had enjoyed the performance. Some even were tossing what looked like flowers of some sort down at him. He looked back down at the hacked corpse of the alien gladiator he had slain, and felt both a relief to have been victorious, and a revulsion at having killed a sentient, living being, and by so barbarous a method.

Still, being alive was the preferable state he decided, and as the iron bars at one end of the arena drew up, and some guards came out, he reflected on the fact that this was likely to mean more matches, since he was now the "winner" of the contest just past. He gave the severed head of his opponent one final look, before he was disarmed and led away by the hulking guards.

_Good thing I watched all those _Lowlander _holovids as a kid. I guess._

CHAPTER SEVEN

The _Galactica _and her charges had now settled into orbit around the binary suns, those ships that could do so taking advantage of the sunlight to bring their seldom-used solar arrays on-line, and cut back for the present on the use of fuel. It looked odd, from the Battlestar's bridge, to see the _Agro Ship One _in the lead for a change, but that was soon forgotten as Adama had called an emergency meeting in the Ward Room.

"All ship's scanners are now on maximum," reported Colonel Tigh. "We have put Rigel's sensor modification into effect on the _Galactica, _and are doing what we can with the suites on other ships. We are sweeping this system with all scanners, Commander."

"Rigel?" asked Adama. He waited as she put up a sensor graphic, amalgamated from the scans of several ships, and different times.

"As you can see, it is a ship, sir," she replied. "I have put everything we have on it through the databanks, but the Warbook has nothing like it, nor does the surviving data from pre-war exploratory missions." She worked to resolve the fuzzy image, and succeeded at last. It was sleek, about thrice the length of a shuttle, twice as wide, and had some sort of outrigger structures amidships. Whether they were drive units or not was unclear. "Now, from all our data, it appears this race has achieved some sort of practical cloaking technology. However, it leaks badly at certain wavelons, which is why we can detect it at all. Our best guess, sirs, is that whoever is flying that ship either does not know of this shortcoming, or their optical systems, both biological and electronic, use very different parts of the spectrum than we do."

"Any trace of bio signs from this ship?" asked Bojay.

"Nothing,' said Rigel. "With their cloaking screen in place, we can barely get this data. We _do_ know that none of the energy signatures that we can detect resemble anything the Cylons use. Or the Eastern Alliance, or any other race known to us."

"Well, how did they get Jolly and those other people out?" asked Sheba.

"I'll defer to Doctor Wilker on that," said Rigel. She sat, while the _Galactica'_s chief scientist took the stage. While few aboard the Fleet actually _liked _the sometimes prickly scientist, all had to admit his skill and acumen were an asset they would be hard-pressed to replace.

"They were taken by some sort of matter-energy phase transition transmission device," he began. "Simply put, they were teleported."

"I thought that was supposed to be impossible," said Croft, on the telecom from the _Agro Ship One. _

"No, just merely impractical," said Wilker. "The problem is power. To properly scan every single atom in an object, right down to its quantum state, store that as data, convert that matter to energy, then store it, transmit it to another point without any data corruption, and reverse the entire process, all without damaging it, _and _do all that in a reasonable amount of time, requires an enormous amount of power. That requirement was something our research people were never able to overcome. That, coupled with the ungodly amount of data storage required, made the whole concept impractical, outside of a planetside facility. It would take almost forty percent of the computing power and data storage aboard the _Galactica _just to store the data for single block of totally homogeneous copper, weighing no more than ten kilons. You see the difficulty. Plus, when you consider the teleportation of living things, _and _the added difficulty of not violating the indeterminacy principle, the problems only get worse."

"But somebody did it," said Sheba.

"Yes, and we still don't entirely grasp how. However…" Wilker turned, and replaced the fuzzy picture of the alien ship with a chart full of lines and squiggles. "Here, you can see these energy spikes, correlating to the very moments when the various people disappeared, and damage to their respective ship's systems occurred. Comparison with what data we have on our old experiments shows that these spikes are the signature of their teleportation system in operation. And, the penetration of the beams into the various ships caused damage to shipboard systems."

"How?" asked Adama and Aurora at once.

"Again, we are not entirely certain how, but it seems that the beams that took our people caused some kind of induction of current in various electrical components, on a huge scale. In the energizers on the _Agro Ship, _it led to a massive feedback of power into the energizers, and all the systems in the power room, resulting in a catastrophic overload. In Lieutenant Jolly's Viper, there was minor damage, as the systems are not the same."

"Why so little damage to the _Hegal_?" asked Apollo. Twilly, still on the other ship, answered:

"We can only speculate that because many of her systems are not Colonial in design, and operate on different electrical frequencies, that the effect was less. We're still studying the data, however."

"Okay," said Starbuck, "what I don't get is why the people who were snatched left their clothes behind. One of the uniforms from the engineers on the _Agro Ship One, _and Jolly's uniform. Why not the clothes too?"

"It seems that the system whoever they are is using only transports organic materials,' continued Twilly. "Most clothes in the Fleet are synthetic fabrics, as are the boots."

"Well, we can't just let whoever it is keep on snatching people," said Bojay.

"What do you suggest, Lieutenant?" asked Adama. "This ship can apparently approach, and then vanish almost before we're aware of her."

"What about an unmanned probe, Commander?" Bojay said. "The _Pegasus _was equipped with a number of recon probe satellites, to be launched into hostile territory, or sown into orbits of various planets for purposes of intelligence gathering. I assume the _Galactica _still has some?"

"We do," said Adama, "all thirty of them. Since fleeing the Colonies, we've had no occasion to use them."

"Good," said Bojay, feeling on a roll. He stood, and moved to the screen. At his request, Rigel put a chart of the system up for him. "We can put one in orbit around that planet, and other points in this system that will give us an unobstructed sweep of the region. By criss-crossing the entire system this way," he swept his hands across the display, "we can see them coming before they get close enough to snatch anyone else. And, we don't risk any more pilots or civilians, until we've come up with some sort of defense."

"But we don't know their range," said Croft.

"They only activate their system when close," said Twilly. "Or at least they have, so far. That would seem to indicate that they have to be in close proximity to a target for their system to work, sirs."

"Sir?" asked Bojay, turning to Adama. The Commander thought for a moment.

"What data do we have on the inhabited planet?"

"Harsh, like Borallis," said Apollo. "It's inhabited, but primitave." He gestured to the scans of the surface he and Jolly had taken. Mud-brick cities, wagons pulled by beasts of burden, ships powered by sail. "They won't even know we're there."

"But someone does," said Boomer. "That ship and teleporter weren't built by a bunch of mud-brick primitives. There's got to be someone else in this system, despite appearances."

"Agreed, sir," said Tigh.

"Very well. Colonel Tigh, coordinate satellite operations with Rigel and Wilker. Get them going as soon as possible."

"Sir."

Jolly had been taken back into the gloomy chambers inside and under the arena, and disarmed. Several of the native beings had stood around, one of them loud and obviously abusive, apparently discussing him. Someone, it would appear, was not happy with the outcome of the match just past. As the shouting-fest continued, a shorter person, carrying a bag filled with crude medical instruments, came over, bade Jolly sit, and them proceeded to examine him.

_Great. They have doctors! I'm sooooo blessed! _

All the while he was being checked over, the other kept speaking in a low voice. While none of it made the slightest bit of sense to him, Jolly slowly began to realize that this language was _not _the same tongue as used by the others. Their language was harsh and cruel-sounding, as if the very words themselves took delight in sadism and torment. This speech was very different. The doctor looked at him, a look that was clearly a puzzled one coming over his face. After a few centons, the guards returned, and Jolly was taken to a larger room, filled with benches. On these benches sat other gladiators. It was obviously a mess, as each place had a small bowl and cup, and someone, one of the native creatures, was going about the room, filling them. For the first time since waking up in this nightmare world, Jolly realized just how hungry he was. Whatever it was they were serving, it actually smelled _good_, and Jolly sat where he was shown to.

Then, he noticed it. He wasn't alone, here. Several of the others were of the same race as his captors, and dressed mostly like himself in a filthy breechclout and tunic. One was from a species unknown to him, a male it seemed, with heavy brows that rose up to a high hairline, long hair trailing behind, and savage-looking teeth. After a moment, he recognized the fellow as the one in the cell next to the one he'd awakened in. The other looked at him, snarled something that sounded very unpleasant, and returned to his food.

But the rest…

The rest were _Human! _He couldn't believe it, but they were as Human as he was, at least from the outside. One spoke to him, but he understood not a word. After a few microns, he realized that the words he was hearing were the same as those spoken by the alien physician. Only from a Human throat, the words were less harsh, less bitter-sounding.

"Dari," said one of the others, pointing to himself. "Dari."

"Uh, Jolly," replied Jolly, imitating the other. _Might as well try to communicate. _He couldn't stand it any more, and looked at his meal. Some thick reddish-brown broth, full of grains and studded with pieces of meat and other things he could not identify looked back up at him. He saw the others partaking, and decided that he was probably safe. He tasted, and found it surprisingly good. Only later would he wonder where the meat had come from. What alien beast. But for now, it was welcome, and quieted his rumbling stomach.

Like the doctor, the other man tried to talk, but language stood between them. He tried to gain some common ground with his fellow prisoners, but didn't get much past _bowl, food, table, guard, tunic, sword, _and_ arena. _The name of the race of the other was beyond the capacities of his tongue, and soon enough the guards came to take them away. As they were led back to their cells, one of the other Humans spoke, and Jolly nearly stopped dead in his tracks. It was a word, an alien word, but one he _had_ heard before. And recently, back on the _Galactica, _wherever she was.

_Ki._

Even as Jolly was locked into his cell, the first of the satellites from the _Galactica _was firing its breaking thrusters, and settling into orbit around the mysterious planet. Less than ten centons later, a second satellite, this one in a polar as opposed to equatorial orbit, followed it. Back on the ship, telemetry from both satellites was soon flowing across Rigel's board. Others to scan the outer edges of the system would soon follow.

Adama watched his screen, as real-time images from the satellites began coming in, and wondered for the thousandth time where Jolly was. Was he there, in one of those villages below? Was he even on the planet at all? Or was he long gone, taken away to parts unknown by his kidnappers, and this operation nothing more than a wild poultron chase? And even if by some miracle they _did _find him and the other missing people, how to rescue them without alerting the kidnappers, and becoming captives themselves?

"Commander Adama?"

"Bridge, Adama here."

"Chief Titus in Fire Control, sir. All laser batteries are manned and standing by. We've installed the software upgrades to our tracking scanners. Everything checks out so far, sir."

"Excellent, Titus. Keep me informed of any sightings."

"Will do, Commander."

Adama sat back, and looked around his bridge. As always, his crew were going about their respective jobs with efficiency and skill. He realized that at time like this, when all that could be done _was _being done, the Commander could be like an extra braking thruster. In the way, and slowing things down. He wanted to ask everyone if there were anything new. Foolish, as he knew that if there _were_ anything new, it would be in front of him faster than Starbuck could make it to the OC after a mission.

This moment of tense quiet put him in mind of his very first tour as Commander of this ship. Fresh out of spacedock and ready for action, the _Galactica_ had been assigned to rendezvous with the _Rycon, _and cut a newly discovered Cylon supply route through a nebula out on the very fringes of the Callixtus Cluster. The scans were studied, the battle plan drawn up and approved, the pilots briefed, everything was as ready as ready ever gets. He recalled, sitting exactly where he was sitting now, waiting for the signal from his old CO, Commander Cronus on the _Rycon, _and actually wishing that something would happen.

And it had. A lone Cylon fighter, either suspicious or just lost, they never did know, had stumbled upon the Colonials hiding in clear pocket inside the nebula, and opened fire. Fearing the alarm had been raised, Adama ordered his men to attack at once, and the _Galactica_ launched, moving in ahead of the _Rycon. _Sending up nervous prayers, Adama had begun his first battle as Commander.

And it could not have been more superbly timed. Once the Vipers cleared the nebula, they found that they had more than _sixty _Cylon tankers in their sights, hiding in another pocket, bunkers plump with fuel, all lined up in a nice neat row, preparing to head out of the area. Had they waited… The pilots opened fire, ripping the enemy convoy to shreds in less than ten centons, even catching a BaseShip with it's electronic pants down, in the act of refueling. By the time the _Rycon_'s pilots joined the fray, the Cylons were scattering, their fighters few and ineffectual. Realizing that so many tankers in one spot surely meant a base, both Commanders swept the area, at last finding it in a nearby asteroid field concealed by the nebula. By the end of the day, the Cylons were down by forty-nine tankers destroyed, seven captured, and four escaped, plus one BaseShip, and an entire fuel mining and processing facility blown to bits. Colonial losses were a mere seven Vipers, and nine shipboard personnel.

_Those were the days, _mused Adama, as he returned to the present. He had just noted the launch of the third recon probe, when Rigel spoke up.

They had something.

Jolly kicked himself for not paying more attention to the stowaways from Ki. While he was no language expert, he recognized the word _Ki, _as the word they used for their home planet. The same word he had heard some of the Human captives use a while ago, in the mess hall.

But Ki was he didn't know _how _many light-yahrens behind them now, her sun just another tiny dot in the starry sky. These folks couldn't possibly be from there. It was just too far away. It must be a coincidence, a chance similarity of sounds, and nothing more than that.

_But they are Human, you idiot. This is the course followed by the Thirteenth Tribe when they fled from Kobol. Maybe there's a connection. Lords, there's gotta be a connection!_

_Provided I'm even on the same planet Apollo and I scanned._

Slowly, worn out by everything that had happened since he'd been so rudely snatched from his ship, the Colonial Warrior turned gladiator slowly drifted off to sleep, and so missed the sounds outside his cells in the wee centars.

The sounds of a Human voice speaking Colonial Standard.

"A wreck?"

"Yes, sir," said Rigel, once more as alert as lepon in field full of predators. "On the third orbit, satellite number two found it." She adjusted the controls, and the image, sent back less than four centons ago, zoomed in. It showed what was obviously some kind of large aircraft, lying in the saddle between two mountains, the region around heavily wooded. It was almost a hundred metrones long, and sported what looked like large pods of some sort at one end. To Adama it looked somewhat familiar. But from where…

"Any luck identifying it?" asked Tigh.

"Still trying, sir. But the spectro on it shows that the alloys in the hull don't match anything used either in the Colonies or by the Cylons, Colonel. We're widening our search. But it doesn't seem to have made a soft landing, sir. There's the furrow behind it, you can see. And the scans pick up traces of metal fragments all around it, as well as astern. We've even picked up metal debris in orbit around the planet. When she came down, she came down hard."

"Life signs?"

"Yes, Commander," Rigel replied. "I am picking up indications of…twelve, no…twenty-eight life forms in the immediate vicinity." She adjusted more controls, and zoomed in even more. There, in infrared, were obviously Humanoid beings, moving about, several campfires and crude buildings clustered together. It was night on that part of the planet, about a centar or so after sunset by Colonial reckoning. Adam studied the images for a while, till the satellite passed out of range.

"Anything from the other satellites, yet?"

"No sir," said Tigh. "Satellite three won't reach its assigned station for another…" he looked at his chrono, "forty-four centons yet. Number four has only just launched."

"I see. Well, this certainly changes the equation, Colonel. The natives who live in those mud-brick townships certainly did not build _that_." He pointed to the image of the crashed ship. "It has to have come from outside their world."

"So it would seem, sir. And Humans around it, rather than the native creatures."

"Yes. Rigel, when the satellite passes over the native settlements, I want every drop you can squeeze out of the scans. Probe for Human life signs in those cities. Put it in a lower orbit if you need to."

"Yes sir."

"And Colonel, we need more data on those Humans."

"How do we get it, without sending people down? And whoever it is might not like it if we start sniffing around like daggits."

"Excellent idea, Colonel," said Adama, smiling.

"Sir?"

"I'll be in Wilker's lab."

CHAPTER EIGHT

They had made it, just in time, Carmichael announced. While the frost damage to many of the plants was extensive, as well as lack of nutrients and water from down pumps, they _had_ saved the bulk of the Fleet's food crops, as well as the pollenizing apions. Heat and light were filling the domes, just like home, and power from the solar arrays was taking up the slack while the engineers worked to put the energizer room back on-line. The one remaining energizer that hadn't been blasted to scrap had, nonetheless, taken a lot of damage, and would need extensive repairs. That, and the constant threat of invisible kidnapping spurred the men to work fast.

But, for now, they had the suns, and Carmichael pulled spores and seeds from stores to try and restart the plants that they had been too late to save. Watching him putter around, pots and seeds and data pads seemingly in endless profusion about him as he muttered constantly to himself, Boomer decided he'd never seen the fellow happier.

But for the Warriors, the fact that their fellow Warrior was still missing, most likely prisoner on the planet now on the far side of the suns from their current position, kept them from feeling much in the way of a sense of achievement. Boomer ached to get out of here, and go search, with Vipers screaming out of the sky and lasers blasting if necessary. But, where, on an entire planet, do you look for a single person?

_Hades Hole! I don't even know if he's still alive. Transported out of a Viper in flight? And in his undies, too! How on Kobol can we ever hope to find him?_

Boomer shook his head, trying to shake off the creeping feeling of doom that seemed to want to smother him. He spared a look over at Athena, and caught her face in profile. Yes, she was sick with worry, as well. He looked up through the dome, and cursed.

"Oh yes, it will work, Commander," said Wilker, boxes and crates still to be unpacked everywhere, the benches of his restored lab piled high with all sorts of parts and electronic whatnot. "As you know, Cylons are linked electronically in a number of ways. It should be possible to reconfigure their basic sensory arrays to feed telemetry back to the Fleet." He finished bolting a shelf to the bulkhead, and a junior technician began setting various items on it.

"What about the rest of the Cylons, Doctor? If they are connected electronically…"

"Not to worry, Commander. I pulled those circuits long ago, right after they arrived."

He stopped over the form of one of Baltar's Cylons, back plate open with electronics exposed, and the head detached. Adama was uncomfortably reminded of a corpse on the autopsy table. The look of glee in Wilker's eyes were like that of the proverbial mad scientist in a really bad melodrama.

"How long?"

"I should have Centurion Agrestis here ready in about five or so centars, Commander."

"Agrestis?" asked Adama, eyebrow raised.

"Oh yes. Each Cylon has a name designation, as well as an ID number. This one here is Agrestis. And his friend over here," he motioned Adama to the other Centurion, sitting upright on a stool, one arm off, and somehow looking forlorn with the access plates to his head open, wires strung from the inner circuits to a bank of diagnostic equipment, "is Centurion Furcifer." The Cylon's red eye still oscillated back and forth, and it looked up at Adama. After a few moments, it spoke.

"By y'alls command!" The voice was unlike that of any Cylon Adama had ever heard, and had been remodulated to an egregious imitation of an Aquarian Mountain accent. "Dealer has the Capstone!" it said, waving the remaining arm. "No winners!" Adama looked at Wilker for a long moment, and the scientist looked sheepish.

"Just a little experiment of mine, Commander," he said, forcing a chuckle, and unplugging the Centurion. "I…"

"Have been hanging around Starbuck too long, I see. Anyway, I want these two ready to go as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir," said Wilker, a bit chastened. Adama left, and he returned to his assistant. "Now…"

"Place your bets!" said Furcifer.

"Quiet."

"By y'alls command."

For a brief moment, Jolly thought he was back at the Academy, being rousted from his bunk by the barracks monitor. After a few bleary millicentons, it all came back to him. He _wasn't_ at the Academy, he wasn't even someplace he knew. He was on an alien planet, surrounded by people he could not communicate with, in a facility where people were supposed to fight each other to the death for the amusement of the crowds. Yanked from a deep sleep _and_ his cell, he was escorted along with the other slaves to the mess hall again, where they were once more fed, then taken to another room. After a brief wash, and other things, in what was obviously a communal latrine (_I guess they never heard of turboflushes around here!),_ they were marched out of the gloomy facility, and into the streets of the city.

It was not yet even daylight, but the many torches carried by the guards provided sufficient illumination. The entire settlement was haphazardly built, as if it hadn't been so much designed as just grown, and confirmed everything Jolly had seen so far. This society was primitive, no further along that late First Millennium, back when bronze had been the metal of choice for all tools and weapons in the Colonies, iron just coming into use. He examined his shackles as best he could in the light, hoping for a chance to escape, but his jailers were obviously far too experienced at this to commit so careless an oversight. The heavy chains linking all the prisoners didn't give much hope, either.

One of the prisoners ahead of him stumbled, and was cruelly yanked to his feet by one of the guards. When the unfortunate slave protested, a savage kick to the back of the knees and a whip across his back persuaded him to be quiet. Almost without thinking, Jolly moved to the aid of his fellow prisoner.

And got much of the same treatment for his trouble. One of the guards, with a laugh straight out of Baltar, gave Jolly a right cross to the mouth, then another. When Jolly stiffened, angry enough to retaliate, the guard struck him again with the coiled whip he held. Still laughing, the thug pushed him back in line, and they were off again. Jolly fell in, holding his anger in check for now, but making a promise to himself about certain people.

It was just barely beginning to get light when they left the confines of a narrow winding street, and Jolly saw a large building ahead. Low and blocky with a row of pillars, it gave him no immediate clue as to its function. They passed through the low door, and soon were ushered into a large, open area. Even here, Jolly recognized an athletic training ground when he saw one. As the light slowly grew, and he could make out more of his surroundings, he noticed a few new faces in the group from last night. While most were of the native race, a few seemed to be Human. He tried to make sense of the few words he'd heard spoken, but another few strikes with the whip reminded all that no talking was allowed.

He was right, this was a training ground. It was similar to the _palestra _back at the Academy, for exercise and workouts. Apparently, his performance yesterday had convinced someone that Jolly was worth training as a gladiator. The captives were unshackled, separated into small groups, handed blunted weapons, and then given a long windy speech by someone who Jolly decided must be some sort of training supervisor. While he understood hardly a word of the raspy, horrid-sounding language, study of his fellow captives told him all he needed to know. Here he was to be trained, fine-tuned and honed into a killing machine for that disgusting arena.

Well, Jolly had other plans, and they did _not _include ending his life on an alien planet on the bloody sands of some arena. He had a life back in the Fleet, such as it was, and if it was going to be snuffed out, let it be in battle with the Cylons, defending the Fleet, not on the end of the blade of some hideous alien who's race's name he didn't even know. As he pondered this, he was led off by another alien, and paired up with someone who held what looked like a very long pitchfork, also blunted. As the instructor tried to make himself understood, growing ever more frustrated by the one slave's inability to understand him, Jolly looked up.

_An engine? My God, Cylons! _

"Telemetry?" asked Adama, on the bridge.

"Coming in loud and clear, sir," said Omega, adjusting his console. "Cylon fighter is just now penetrating the upper atmosphere."

"Excellent."

"You think this will work, Father?" asked Apollo, watching the scans from the Cylon ship over Adama's shoulder.

"I hope so. Colonel Tigh's remark about daggits reminded me of Muffit. It suddenly occurred to me that while we need eyes on the ground, living visitors might alert whoever is kidnapping our people. Muffit is mechanical, and it wasn't a great leap to think of Baltar's Cylons. Since their craft has no living things aboard, perhaps it will go unnoticed."

"Let's hope so. How long till dawn over the target site?"

"Just under two centars. The planet rotates in twenty-five and a half centars, approximately." They both looked at the maps generated from the satellite's data. The Cylons had passed over the settlements Apollo's overflight had detected, strung across a wide coastal plain. Beyond that were mountains, where the wreck had been discovered, which descended into a vast plain filled with forests, rivers, and impenetrable bogs. Both satellites had picked up signs of small scattered settlements in this area, with Human life signs. Beyond, lay more mountains, then endless deserts extending to the other side of the continent, which finally terminated in a chain of mountains that fell away into the sea. The continent filled over half of the planet's northern hemisphere, two smaller ones taking up the southern half of the land surface. Neither showed any indications of sentient life.

"Sooner or later, we're going to have to risk sending people down," said Apollo.

"But we need to know more, first."

Jolly's opponent was very nimble with the weapon he'd been given, and it was proving to be a real challenge for him to stave off the other's attacks. However, Jolly had been trained in forms of combat, hand-to-hand and otherwise, unimagined here, and succeeded in keeping the trident away. He blocked it with his sword, then managed to get it away from his opponent entirely, stomping down on the forked end, and yanking upwards, breaking the wooden handle with a loud snap.

The other snarled with anger, not having it seemed counted on this result, and attacked the Colonial Warrior bare-handed. Jolly cracked the remains of the long wooden handle of the trident across the other's partially exposed face, and saw blood fly. It cried out in pain, but soon recovered itself. It grabbed at the weapon, and Jolly felt it yanked from his grip. The other leapt for him, and Jolly yelped at the pain of the others long nails digging into his skin, but responded with a hard jab of the knee upwards. The other bellowed in pain and let go, staggering backwards, eyes closed in agony. Jolly let him be for the moment, still shackled with some measure of scruple, and almost at once paid for it. The alien head-rammed him, and the two went down into the dust.

They rolled back and forth, sand clinging to their sweaty bodies, trading blows. Jolly managed another knee jab, this time missing the primary target and getting the creature's gut instead. Its hold loosened, and Jolly head-slammed it with his helmet. The alien crumpled, and Jolly reached for his sword, blunt though it was, feeling the bloodlust beginning to sing in his ears. He raised it to kill…

But got no further. Before he could do aught else, a heavy net was thrown over both he and his opponent, and then he was pulled off his feet. He struggled, but it was useless. The ropes of the net were too thick and strong for him to master, and the sword's edge was blunted. With more shouts and screams, and laughter, from those around him, he and his struggling erstwhile foe were dragged away.

The Cylon fighter had landed in a high mountain valley, the summit of a pass actually, where a crude road crossed from the seaward plains to the boggy forests beyond. After a few centons, the two Centurions emerged, and began looking around. Everything they saw, everything they heard, was transmitted to their ship, and from there back to the _Galactica._

The second sun was just rising out of the sea, and the grand sweep of the land down to the ocean was a spectacle that was truly awesome. Enough to inspire any artist. It was, however, lost on the two Cylons, who merely saw the terrain and light levels as data to be gathered and forwarded. They looked towards the still dark land beyond the mountains. Human life signs, but very far away. More than a day's travel on foot to the nearest of them, even for Cylons. They turned away and scanned the more immediate area, and one bent down to pick up a worn piece of metal from the ground.

"Wreckage," said Furcifer to his companion. "Spacecraft alloy."

"The crashed vessel is fourteen killometrons, on a heading of twenty-three point four degrees, this way," replied Agrestis. "Human life signs detected." He began moving that way, then tripped over a root.

"Pick up your feet!"

"By your command."

After a few painful moments, Jolly found himself inside again, strong hands pulling him free of the net. He was yanked to his feet, then struck across the face by one of the hulking guards. He recovered, but was struck again, and the "head trainer" as he'd dubbed him bellowed in his face long strings of words that meant nothing. Seemingly in a rage, he struck Jolly himself, and then…

Fell silent as Jolly spat in his face. His expression went from one of shock to one of fury, and he smashed his fist into Jolly's face, knocking him to the floor. He drew a blade, and then got Jolly's feet in his face for his trouble. Black blood splattered everywhere, and the other's face grew even more furious. He growled unknown words, then raised his blade…

Only to have someone shout a single word. _"Pask!"_ The trainer stopped, face becoming fearful, and stepped back. Jolly was yanked to his feet, and another alien, the one who had paid the garishly- dressed one, grunted a few words, and indicated with a jerk of his head that Jolly was to be removed. He was dragged back to a cell, and thrown in. After they had left, he lay on the floor, trying to catch his breath, determine how many teeth he had left, and figuring out what other injuries he had. Everything hurt, so he gave up, and slowly got first to his knees, then to his feet. He noticed a bucket in the corner, this one with plain water in it. He wiped the blood off his face, and looked around. Like before, the cell was a study in early crude, and he was not alone. Someone was sitting on the bunk in the other cell, and they were looking at him.

Then, they spoke.

"Lieutenant Jolly?"

While the two Cylons were heading off to investigate, Wilker and his team continued to pour over the evidence. All the wreckage so far studied, as well as the clothing left behind, showed traces of an unusual energy signature. Wilker did some computations, then checked the Battlestar's library computer. Nothing. No analog to this bizarre reading was to be found in any Colonial data files. Stymied for the moment, he swore, then returned to his calculations.

_Damn being cut off from all the data back home! _he mused. The central Library Network in the Colonies held many times the information that could be stored aboard a Battlestar. In the old days, all he'd have to do was request a link, then wait for the relay buoys to connect him by the shortest route. That done, the sum total of all Human knowledge would have been at his fingertips.

But here, now, he would have to struggle, hoping that somehow, he could make sense of and back engineer this…alien science, from such paltry clues. Only organic matter was being taken, so the system must have some sort of discriminator, allowing it to filter out anything not recognized as biological in origin. Wilker scratched his chin, and punched another simulation into his terminal.

_Frack!_

CHAPTER NINE

"How in Hades did you get here?" asked Jolly, of the man in the next cell. Cautious of the sadistic guards, he kept his voice down.

"I have no idea," said the other. Jolly had after a few moments recognized the fellow as Ferris, a former Viper pilot. One of the transferred Warriors from the _Pegasus, _he'd been seriously injured in Cain's push through Baltar's task force near Gamoray. Legs badly broken and burned, he'd become an instructor for the new cadets on simulators, while undergoing numerous therapy and regen sessions, before being transferred to the _Hegal, _after the old barge had been added to the Fleet. He and Jolly had known each other somewhat at the Academy, then as instructors on the _Galactica_. In fact, Jolly had bought (several) rounds of drinks in the O Club, the night before Ferris shipped out to his new assignment as the _Hegal's _Exec. "I was on the bridge, calibrating the instruments with all the upgrading we're doing, and then…I'm waking up, here."

"Me too. Apollo and I were checking out this planet in our Vipers. Suddenly, boom."

"Did you feel a funny tingling on the skin? And a sort of dizziness?" asked Ferris. Jolly nodded. "Yeah. Whatever it was, the same thing grabbed both of us."

"What about the rest of the _Hegal'_s crew?"

"I saw a couple of them in the holding cells where I woke up. Captain Aulus, and one of the animal wranglers. But I didn't get to speak to either of them. Any idea where we are, Lieutenant?"

"The habitable planet in that system the Fleet was headed towards. That's all I know for sure."

"Well for sure it's a monghole, sir. These creatures…" Ferris shook like he was going to be sick. "They look like something out of a nightmare. Trolls, goblins, or whatever."

"Yeah, and about as friendly if I remember," said Jolly, massaging his swelling face. His lip was still bleeding, and one eye was swelling shut. "Look, in case we get split up again, if you see any more of the _Hegal'_s crew, tell them about me, and that we're gonna get out of here."

"You have a plan, sir?"

"Not yet, but I don't intend to cash in my chips in that arena, Ferris. Not this Human."

"Nor this one," replied Ferris. "And speaking of Humans, have you seen the others?"

"The one's that don't speak Colonial? Yeah. I've been wondering a lot about them. Have you learned anything about them?"

"Well not much, but maybe they know where there's a ship."

"A ship? What makes you think…"

"Their language, sir. I've heard it before."

"Where?"

"In the O Club, one evening before we left the planet with those primitives on it. The one's who saved Boomer and Athena? I heard them talking, and Athena was working with her languatron. I recognize some of the words."

"Yeah," said Jolly. "Some of those other guys said the word '_Ki'_ over and over. What if…" He looked towards the door at a noise outside, but it passed. "Look, I also heard a fighter pass overhead. Cylon."

"Cylons? Oh frack! If they've found this place…We gotta warn the Fleet, sir."

"Yeah. But how?"

"I don't know, but if it _is_ Cylons, why haven't they attacked?"

"I don't know, Ferris. Maybe…" Jolly stopped, at the sound of a key in the lock. "Remember, if they split us up…"

"Right. What's your plan, sir?"

"Plan? I'm making this up as I go along."

Agrestis stood behind a large tree, partially obscured by thick foliage, and studied the sight before him. A wide saddle of a valley between two rugged and massive upthrusts of rock was filled with Humans. Actually, his sensors had so far detected only a couple of dozen, but to a Cylon, any number of Humans constituted a "fill". As he watched, scanning and analyzing, he detected his partner, Centurion Furcifer, getting into position across the valley, behind a large rocky outcrop. Between them, and a little forward of their position, lay the wreck.

It was approximately three hundred metrons long, and about ten wide. The stern of the craft sported some kind of engine nacelles, now largely gutted, with one thruster bell still attached. The central section of the fuselage was intact, though somewhat crumpled. It sat at the end of a shallow gully, with bits of metallic and plastic debris trailing behind it up the valley. In the shadow of one sheared-off wing, a single Human could be seen, digging in the ground. A dozen or so metrons to the right of the wreckage, several crudely built structures were visible, apparently cobbled together from both wreckage and native materials. A number of quadrupedal beasts were in evidence, some small and furry, others large and powerfully built, and being used to haul either burdens or riders. As his sensors focused in on the settlement more closely, he detected two things. More Humans were approaching the settlement, either from over the pass, or from the surrounding hills. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. Secondly, one of the furry animals turned in his direction, and began vocalizing in a series of unintelligible sounds.

"Looks like a Human settlement," said Tigh, watching the telemetry in near-realtime with Adama. "Survivors of some kind of spaceship crash."

"Yes. And they must have come from somewhere connected with the Thirteenth Tribe, Tigh. That animal. Clearly a daggit of some sort."

"And an eqqus, too. So, where do you think they came from?"

"I'd say it's pretty obvious, wouldn't you? Those animals, that ship, Human beings."

"Ki?"

"I'd lay money on it. Colonel, get Boomer and Athena over here. I want to talk with them. I…"

"Commander! It looks like the Cylons have been discovered!"

Much to his surprise, Jolly was not punished any further for his actions in the training area. Apparently, from what little of the native babble he could grasp, his actions showed "spirit" or something, and he had been attended to by the physician again. The alien doctor put some sort of hideous-smelling black ointment on his wounds that stung like Hades, and gave him a cup of something to drink. It was vile, but he had no choice.

"My God!" he cried, after getting the last of it down. "What do you brew it from, dead toads?" He tossed the cup away in disgust, and came close to woofing his mushies all over the other. The physician just looked at him as he coughed, and shrugged. Despite the horrid taste and burning of the throat, the concoction actually warmed Jolly. He could feel the heat spreading though his tired and sore limbs, bringing new strength. After a few moments, he actually felt quite a bit better. Then, a shadow fell over him, and he looked up.

"_Duz. De gehunzi dHat!"_ It was the head trainer, or owner, or whoever. The doctor scurried away, and Jolly was lifted to his feet by the other, gripping his tunic. More alien verbiage spilled forth, but Jolly was lost in it. He thought he recognized the local word for _weapon, train, arena, _and _kill, _but that was all, and he wasn't totally certain of those either.

The other seemed as frustrated as he was about the lack of understanding, and turned, looking around the chamber. Spotting another Human, the ugly goblin summoned him over, and spoke rapidly to him. Jolly did not recognize this one, but he did recognize the language he spoke. It was that tongue from Ki, or awfully like it, which of course left him equally in the dark. His keeper seemed to grow grumpier at the lack of progress in communicating with Jolly, and stopped the lesson with a chop of the hand and a barked _"Pask!" _He seemed to think a moment, then spewed out a long train of words to the other Human. Apparently satisfied, he left Jolly and the other together. For…?

"Erish," said the other, pointing to himself.

_Ah. Language lessons._

"Jolly."

"Jaw lee," replied the other, shaking his head as if the very name was somehow funny. "Jaw lee."

Agrestis watched the quadruped as it began to move towards him. His Cylon database contained one scant entry on creatures like this, sometimes used by Humans to guard campsites since their senses could not be jammed electronically. As he analyzed possible courses of action, the creature stopped, turning back towards the settlement. There was the sound of a voice, Human according to his analysis, and the quadruped had responded to it, returning. However, it did not stop looking in his direction. Agrestis let go of the hilt of his sword, and moved slowly away, to both continue his survey of the area, and try and remain hidden from the Humans.

"We're going to be able to save over ninety-three percent of our currently growing total plant-life, Commander," reported Carmichael. "Our food supplies should not suffer more than perhaps a two to three secton shortfall."

"Excellent news, Chief Carmichael," replied Adama. "The people will be pleased. What about the other seven or so percent?"

"We can restore the stocks from seeds kept in storage, Commander. By this time next yahren, if we're still traveling, you won't notice the difference."

"Glad to hear it, Chief."

Captain Demeter's news was as good. The workers had succeeded in replacing all the bulkheads and deckplates in the energizer room aboard the _Agro Ship One, _and were already running cable. The first new energizer, fabricated and fitted out in record time, would soon be ready to install. All in all, the future of the ship, and her precious cargo, was bright.

"Commander, Boomer and Athena are aboard now," said Tigh, and Adama nodded. He continued pouring over reports from both the _Agro Ship One, _and the _Hegal,_ till the two arrived. They of course asked if there were any news of Jolly, and were disappointed at the answer. Then he put up the scans of the wrecked ship, both from orbit and on the ground, and was gratified when he got the response he expected.

"She's designed along the same lines as the shuttle we flew up from Ki, no question," said Boomer. Next to the wrecked vessel was a scan of the Kian shuttle, still in the _Galactica'_s hangar bay, and the similarities were at once obvious. While the shuttle was much smaller, the nose section, as well as the general configuration of the aft thrusters, showed that they both had obviously come from the same design team. A bent and battered hatch, still visible on the side of the crashed vessel, was an exact match for the one on the shuttle.

"Those thruster nozzles look exactly the same," said Athena. "And that lettering on the aft section looks like what we saw in the old missile silo. But here? From what we gathered from the computers and books on Ki, they didn't have any kind of light speed drive. We're…how far from there now?"

"Over seventeen and a half light-yahren, as we measure it," replied Adama. "Well, our information is fragmentary, so we must assume that either they _did_ have light speed, and some few escaped the destruction of their world, or it was a multigenerational or sleeper ship."

"Sleeper? Like the one we encountered near Terra?" she asked.

"Similar, yes. Either way, Humans from Ki made it here, and their ship crashed upon arrival. Since we've scanned Humans on the planet, obviously there were some survivors." Adama showed them images from the two Cylons. Boomer raised an eyebrow, but understood the logic of it. No living beings could be detected and abducted if there were no living beings to detect.

"Well, let's hope the locals don't freak out if they spot a Cylon, Commander," he said, sparing Athena a look.

"Well, aside from a daggit, they have managed to avoid detection by the locals," said the Commander. "But we may have to expose them to discovery, if we want to learn more."

"Well I'm sure that Jolly and the rest are in those cities," said Athena.

"Based upon?" asked Adama.

"Well, whoever snatched our people obviously wanted them for something. On a planet this backwards, slave labor seems most likely. Those cities look to be pretty bustling affairs, from what the scans show, so it makes sense that that's the place to look for them, Commander."

"But the technology of those cities is utterly incapable of building a wooden glider, let alone kidnapping people from moving ships at interstellar distances. I…"

"Commander!" said Tigh, calling across to Adama. The Exec rushed to him, paper in hand. "Sir, we've found something."

"Scanners detect vessel approaching," said Furcifer.

"Acknowledged."

As he was led back to the mess hall after some time with the "teacher", Jolly heard it again. The unmistakeable sound of spacecraft engines overhead. Only this time, it wasn't a Cylon fighter he heard. Of that he was certain. These were loud, roaring even, and at an odd pitch, like some sort of old-fashioned ion drivers used deep inside a planetary atmosphere. It passed overhead, and then faded into the distance. He looked at his fellow gladiators. Hardly anyone had even batted an eye at the sound. What the…

_There has to be some sort of base on the planet,_ he told himself. _These things could never have built any sort of aircraft, let alone that! But who…?_

He looked across the dirty table, and saw Ferris once more, down at the other end. He needed to get in touch with him again, and let him know about the plan that was formulating in his head. Jolly had noted what he thought _might _be a weakness in the way the aliens controlled their slaves, a gap in their security. If he was right, and if he could find exactly the right moment to exploit it…

_Then where? _

"_Ekri't!" _said one of the guards loudly, and all the gladiators got up, and were led outside once more. As they passed through the doors, Jolly was close to Ferris, and managed to whisper _"got a plan" _before they were led away, back to the practice grounds and more training. Jolly listened, but the sound of the engines had faded away.

CHAPTER TEN

"A ship, sir," Omega had declared, at the same moment Jolly was getting lessons. "Decelerating as it approaches the planet." He put a tactical plot of the entire solar system up on Adama's screen. "Satellite Four picked it up just as it settled into it's orbit, Commander."

"Origins?" asked Adama, watching the flashing dot that represented the unknown vessel. It was arcing in towards the planet from the unknown depths of space, and was currently on the far side of the suns from the Fleet.

"Unknown, sir. It was already well within the system by the time it was picked up by the satellite. Her power signature doesn't conform to that of any known race, Commander. She's using a mode of propulsion unknown to us. Now running scanner fixes to fine tune the data, sir."

"It doesn't seem to be running with that cloaking apparatus in operation," said Tigh.

"No sir. No evidence of the cloak's energy signatures at all."

"Have we been detected?" asked the Colonel again.

"Unknown sir, but no obvious evidence of it as yet. Ship still on course for the third planet." Omega put a close-up of the intruder vessel next to Rigel's scans of earlier. Apart from the fuzziness of the earlier images, it was obvious that they had a match. Either the same ship, or one of the same class. And it was closing on the planet where Jolly and the others most likely were being held. Now at half of light-speed, and still slowing.

But what was the connection between an obviously highly advanced spacecraft, and a planet of mud-brick towns and bronze-wielding aliens? Adama considered it for several centons, as they watched the alien vessel draw closer and closer to the planet.

"Omega, any scans of the ship's interior? Can you see if there are living beings aboard?"

"Not from here, sir. If we run up our scanner power high enough to get that kind of data, we could risk being detected."

"What about the probe satellites in orbit around the planet already?" asked Athena.

"If the ship passes close enough, or doesn't detect one of them and cloak up, them we might get something," replied Omega. "And we'll find out in…just under fifty-seven centons. That's when she'll reach the planet."

"Send the appropriate instructions to the satellites," ordered Adama.

And now there it was. The ship had, it seemed, entirely missed the probes in orbit, and had passed close enough to one to get some good readings. There was indeed life aboard, but the readings were confusing, and at first seemed to match nothing in the Colonial database.

"She's entering the atmosphere now, sir," said Tigh. "Over the sea, heading for the settled area."

"Full scan Colonel. We've got to see where she sets down."

"Scanning sir."

Agrestis and Furcifer were heading back to their ship, having received orders to recon the plotted landing area of the intruder vessel. As they approached, they saw several Humans, congregating around the fighter, apparently inspecting it.

"Halt!" ordered Agrestis, raising his pulse-blast rifle and pointing it at the interlopers. It was a part of his Cylon programming left intact by Doctor Wilker's modifications, although the weapon was on a low setting. Furcifer did the same, and for a moment, all was deathly still. The Humans, some dressed in rags, some in suspiciously advanced-looking clothing, stood frozen, looking at these monsters from nowhere. After a few moments, one picked up a rock, and threw it as Agrestis. It banged off his armor plating, but did no damage. The Cylon fired, ripping an ugly hole in the ground at the Human's feet. The other ran, and was soon followed by the rest of the locals.

As the "training" continued, Jolly tried to focus on the problem at hand. Not his opponent so much, a creature of uncertain race and armed with a short sword and round shield, but the mystery of the Cylon fighter he'd heard overhead. He'd had too many years experience as a Warrior not to be able to recognize _that _sound without even thinking. If a Cylon fighter had reconned the place, then it was a sure bet that some BaseShip Commander knew of it by now. Why had there been no attacks, though? Distance? Or was this place even worth expending fuel and ammunition on, as far as the Cylons were concerned? The bulk of the population wasn't Human, so maybe they were ignoring it.

_Fat chance,_ he told himself, as he ducked another attack by his opponent. If it lived, the Cylons would attack it. The Hassari's weren't Human, and they were slaughtered in their millions before the Colonials intervened. The Delphians, creatures that looked like a cross between a rodent and a blob of dessert gel and were totally peaceful, were about as un-Human as you could get. Yet, the Cylons had utterly exterminated the entire species, in their interminable quest to bring "order" to the universe. No, the Cylons would not spare even a culture this primitive, if they ever came upon it.

_Duck. Upward thrust._

So what about the Fleet? If there was _one_ Cylon fighter in the area, that meant there was a whole BaseShip full of the nasty little frackers. And if that were the case, then that meant that Commander Adama probably knew about it too, and wouldn't be risking the entire Fleet for one lost pilot. Jolly sagged, and almost got hit by the other gladiator, as he realized that the Fleet was probably hightailing it out of the sector at this very moment. He didn't blame the Commander. If there were Cylons around, he'd have done the same in Adama's place. But it sure didn't make him feel any better.

His opponent took advantage of Jolly's distraction, and thrust in. The blunted sword did not inflict a mortal wound, but it hurt like Hades Hole as it connected with his exposed flesh. He staggered back a moment, then, snarling, renewed his attack on the other. He struck one, two, three hard blows in quick succession, then fell back as the other moved in for retaliation. Jolly then lunged, slamming the other with his shield, then bringing his own sword crashing down on the creature's helmet. He then struck the other across the face with his leather-clad sword arm, then smacked him again in the side of the head with his shield. The other gladiator staggered, obviously struggling to keep his feet, when Jolly hit him with the shield again, and then tripped him. The alien fighter went down in the dust with a crash, and Jolly put a foot on his neck.

One of the trainers, the mean one, came out, and shoved Jolly back. Shouting long words that meant nothing to him but felt evil all the same, the trainer grabbed Jolly's sword away, and then slapped him in the face twice, pointed to the fallen opponent, then yelled some more. It seemed that Jolly had committed some breach of the rules, but what it was exactly mystified him. After a few more screams and rants, the Viper pilot was once more led off, blood running down his face…

And his knuckles white with the clenching of fury.

"Commander," said Omega, after tracking the intruder down, "she passed close to the node of both satellite's orbits. The alien ship has touched down, approximately twenty-four point two two killometrons from the nearest native settlement." He put the data up on Adama's monitor.

"Order the Cylons to overfly the spot," ordered Adama. "And contact Croft on the _Agro Ship One. _Recall him to the _Galactica _at once, along with his men. We're going down to the surface."

"But if the aliens pick up life signs," said Tigh, "you could be taken too, Commander."

"Their ship is on the ground, Colonel. And we have the tactical advantage at the moment, which I intend to make the most of."

"Major Croft on the line, sir," said Omega.

"Thank-you. Major."

"Commander?"

"How'd you like a crack at the people who kidnapped Jolly?"

The alien vessel had touched down in a dry, rugged valley, near a sprawling ruined city. Once large and substantial, the elements had obviously been reclaiming the place for yahren, perhaps generations, if its cracked walls and crumbling towers were anything to judge by.

But, even so, someone lived here. Bare centons after the dust kicked up by the ship's landing had settled, figures emerged from some of the more intact buildings, from which thin trails of black smoke wafted skyward, and moved towards the alien spacecraft. Mostly made up of Humans, there was a sprinkling of other races, overseen by locals, who kept their charges in line with whips and ferocious-looking animals on leashes. Vaguely of the reptilian sort, they looked like enormously oversized lizards with wild red fur bristling along their backs, and long barbed tails. Their jaws and teeth were gaping and ugly, much like their upright masters.

The slaves, for that is what the Humans in chains obviously were, also carried heavy burdens, large boxes carried on poles between men. There were close to a score of these boxes, as well as heavy baskets, and the train of misery came to a halt some distance from the ship. It's hatch opened, and a ramp extended to the ground. Out of the shadowy interior large figures descended, as different from the local inhabitants as could be. Once at the bottom of the ramp, others emerged; a line of bound captives, of at least three races.

All this the Cylon fighter's scanners had seen in a flash, as the Centurions flew over the sight, dropping something. Within moments, they had moved past, banking behind a hill a click or so beyond the ruins. Then, in response to orders, the fighter climbed back up into orbit, powered down, and stayed put.

But they had been noticed.

As had the newcomers. While they belonged to no race know to the Colonials, the scans gave them a much clearer picture than before. Bipedal, they were top-heavy, head and torso seemingly one, with a single multi-lensed eye above a tiny mouth, and pulsating membranes, apparently for breathing. Three arms completed the picture of what could be detected remotely, and Adama turned to their ship.

Compactly built, it packed a considerable arsenal for its size. Heavy laser guns fore and aft, a cannon of some sort under the nose, and ten tubes apparently for launching rockets, it would be a foe to be wary of in a fight. Add the cloaking and teleporting technology these people possessed, and they constituted a clear threat to the safety of the Fleet for as long as the refugees remained in this area of space. And of course, there was no telling just _how _big their area of space was.

Omega finished both retasking the satellite, and activating the remote sensor drone the Cylon fighter had dropped (floating on it's repulsors about half a kilometron from the aliens), and Adama watched the drama unfold. One of the guards, who had just spent some time whipping a slave who had dropped a basket, began looking over some of the new arrivals. After a while, the boxes were opened, and the contents of the other containers examined.

"Argentric, Commander," said Omega, as the scanner data came in. "Those boxes are filled with it, sir." He zoomed in as far as the Cylon drone would go. One of the boxes was turned just the right way towards the drone, and they could see that it was packed tightly with small ingots of the precious metal, shining brightly in the glaring sunlight. The scanner estimated the weight at almost fifty kilons per chest, and with this many of them…

Then one of the baskets was lowered. This one, however, was filled with auric, also in ingots. Then, after some time discussing matters, the newcomers were unchained, and the were handed over to the locals, and the treasure loaded aboard the spacecraft.

"Slaves!" said Tigh. "The filthy vermin are buying Human slaves!"

"My God," breathed Adama, jaw clenching. "So that's it. Some kind of mining operation here. Athena, you were right. Omega, open a channel to the Cylon fighter."

"Major Croft is now aboard sir," said Omega.

"Tell him to prepare their shuttle. We'll brief on the way."

"Sir?"

"I'm going down, Colonel. Boomer? Athena?"

"With you!"

"I have the Raider, sir," said Omega.

"Transfer it to the Mark X, Omega."

"Sir."

"The bridge is yours, Colonel."

After being cleaned up a bit, Jolly was once more put in one of the dimly lit rooms inside the training arena. As luck, or perhaps something more than luck, would have it, he again found himself next to Ferris. The guards were somewhat slack here, feeling confident in their drear dungeon, and he was able to talk to the former Viper pilot.

There were, Ferris said, at least two other people from the Fleet in the room right now. Without making it obvious, Jolly tried looking around. Over by one tiny window was someone he recognized. Bibon, a technician who had worked on the _Agro Ship, _and the second, whom he did not recognize.

"And?"

"They said they'd pass the message to any of the rest of our people we can find, sir," whispered Ferris. "What's your plan?"

"First off, we need to get the keys."

"And the guards, sir?"

"Expendable, Ferris."

"It won't be easy, sir. I get the feeling these guys are really used to handling prisoners."

"They've never met up with Colonial Warriors before, Ferris. I have no…" he stopped, as one of the guards looked their way, then slowly passed on. "I have no intention of letting a bunch of mud-brick trolls make a slave of me. Or any Human." Jolly took a cup from the slave, apparently a Human trustee, who was passing the water around. "Any luck with the other Humans, Ferris?"

"A little, sir. From what I can figure, they're as hungry to make a break as we are."

"Will they follow?"

"Lords know, sir. So far, I'm only up to about fifty words or so.'

"Same here, Ferris. I…" He stopped, as a guard called out loudly in his vile-sounding tongue. The prisoners were to stand, and were soon led out of the chamber. Once outside, they were led through the same street through which they had approached the building. Looking around, Jolly could see the mostly faceless buildings, and a couple of what looked like shops at the corners. Ferris was chained to someone else, but as he turned, he caught Jolly's eye, and nodded.

_Great, Jolly. Everybody is ready, waiting for you to unveil your brilliant plan, O Glorious Leader type. Nothing could be simpler._

_So, what in Hades Hole is the plan?_

_Hhmm……….. I wonder what Starbuck would do?_

Further planning was cut off as one of the guards, for no discernable reason, decided to strike the prisoner next to Jolly several times with his cruel metal and bone-studded whip. That his blows also struck Jolly, biting deep welts into his flesh, was of no concern whatsoever.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Colonel Tigh watched the telemetry coming in from the Cylon drone in morbid fascination. The new group of aliens was so utterly _hideous_. They made the Ovions and some of the other races he'd encountered in his many yahrens in space seem almost attractive by comparison. And the fact that they were trading in slaves, and some of those slaves Human, filled him with anger. For a moment, he wished he were going with the team to the surface, to dish out some serious hurt to these vermin. For a millicentons or two, he indulged in fantasies of launching all Vipers, and wiping the flesh-peddling creatures out. But, he had his orders, and he would follow them. Still…

He turned to look at another monitor, and watched the shuttle launching from Beta Bay. He silently wished them Godspeed, and then turned back to the telemetry from the planet.

"Uh oh."

Someone on the alien vessel had descended the ramp, and spoken to the apparent leader, if the more elaborately colored sash the figure wore indeed denoted rank. It held some sort of electronic device, quickly identified as a scanner, and was gesturing towards the hidden sensor drone.

"Discovered," said Tigh. "Omega, can you move the drone back? Away from their ship?"

"Trying, sir."

"Damn. Get me the shuttle at once."

The sadistic guard kept on whipping the defenseless captive, stopping only to laugh when the man tried to regain his feet. He laughed again, kicked the object of his sadism in the ribs, and then raised his whip for another blow.

But it never fell.

"Very well, Colonel," said Adama, at the news. "Order the Cylons to move in again, and disable that alien vessel if possible, but _not_ to destroy her. We must keep her from taking off."

"Right away, sir. And you?"

"Increasing speed, Colonel."

One of the laser guns on the hull of the intruder vessel rotated, tracking the mysterious object scanning them. Like their Colonial counterparts, these creatures knew that no one on this planet could possibly build anything more sophisticated than an animal drawn wagon. Electronic scanning devices were out of the question.

The gun whined, and fired. Rock and dirt blew into the air, but the Cylon drone was too nimble, having been built to evade such measures. The alien guns kept tracking, and the drone sent out a pulse. The other side now had over a dozen new targets to track, and the gun began to blast away uselessly, sending many bushes and rocks to meet their maker, but missing the drone entirely. Dancing around randomly, the device kept its scanners focused on the alien ship at all times, shooting out a pulse to disable one alien who emerged from the ship with a portable weapon of some sort. It was an irony, Adama thought, that a device designed to work against Humans, and do so most effectively, should now be put to use serving Man.

He frowned, almost swearing, as a lucky shot from the aliens connected, knocking the drone down. After a few millicentons, the picture went fuzzy, as the drone's circuits began to die. It fell to the ground, showing him only sky, and a tree branch. Then…

One of the aliens had been dispatched to recover the mysterious machine. It found the disabled drone, lying in the dirt, its shell scorched by the weapon's hit. It was beeping regularly, a light on the shell flashing every two millicentons, but the alien ignored this as it reached down, picked it up…

"Ouch!" said Croft, as the drone's telemetry was cut off forever. Designed for multi-purpose use, the drone had activated a small solonite charge inside its shell upon being damaged. When the alien soldier picked it up, it had exploded, a blast powerful enough to knock several of those nearby off their feet. The rest of the aliens collected themselves, and with barked orders, began to get back into their ship.

"Cylon fighter approaching intruder vessel's location, Commander," said Croft. "They'll be on top of it in two centons."

"Our ETA?"

"Fourteen and a half centons, sir."

"Emergency speed, Major."

"Sir," said Croft, and the shuttle's engines began to roar.

Jolly leapt as far as his chains permitted, and grabbed the whip-arm of the vicious guard. The other was taken utterly by surprise, and had no time to recover as Jolly ripped the whip from his grasp, and turned it on him. The guard began screaming, but no help was forthcoming. As if thinking in unison, the prisoners rose up, and attacked the other guards.

Jolly dropped the whip, and grabbed the stunned and bleeding guard, wrapping several links of his chain around the thing's neck. He pulled with all his strength, never letting go even as the other's clawed nails raked his flesh. He slammed it into the ground, his foot on the alien's back, as he yanked harder and harder. He kept it up until the other sagged, and he then grabbed the guard's head, twisting till it cracked loudly. Letting the dead creature fall, he reached for the keys on the guard's belt, and began to unlock his shackles. No sooner had the chains fallen from his wrists, then he saw the last guard go down under the chains and fists of the prisoners.

"Ferris?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Grab all their weapons. We'll try and get more from the armory."

"And then?"

"We're getting the frack out of here is what." He thrust the keys into his belt, and took the sword from the dead guard's scabbard. "Come on."

"Ship on the scanners, sir!" shouted Castor. "It's one of the intruders, sir."

"Course?" said Adama, turning from the growing planet in the ports to the other officer.

"Headed for us, Commander."

"Cloaked?"

"Yes, sir. I can barely read her, but she's there. Still on an intercept vector."

"Track and fire as best you can!" ordered Adama.

The Cylon fighter broke out of the hard blue sky, bearing down on the alien vessel. At the first sight of this screaming monster from the sky, many of the slaves tried to run. Some succeeded in making the ruins, others were shot down by the alien guards. One of these raised a weapon, but the lasers from the Raider connected first. The alien soldier was blown to bits, huge clouds of dirt and soil sent skyward. The Cylon roared past before anyone else could respond.

The engines on the alien ship began to hum, as they prepared to launch. But the Cylon craft was too nimble. Making a second pass, Agrestis and Furcifer fired again, this time striking the alien. One laser salvo burned close to the fuselage, the other ripped through a wing, nearly shearing it off. One of the guns on the intruder tracked and fired, barely missing the Raider, another shot grazing the underside.

Despite the damage, the other ship continued to attempt escape. It began to move, lifting off the ground, but got no higher than a metron. Another blast from the Cylons sent it sideways into a large rock, and it was still.

For a few precious centons, Jolly and his impromptu army were free. But where to go? He knew it would be bare centons before someone would either come looking for them, or someone from one of the nearby buildings would see them, and raise the alarm. Well, as his old flight instructor had once told the class, never give your enemy a clear shot. He looked around…

And spied one of the shops on the corner of this filthy street. Shouting "C'mon!" he made for it, and with the help of a couple of burly gladiators, smashed into it. As he remembered from the first trip through this street, it had been stocked with large jars or barrels of what had smelled like some sort of oil. If he recalled correctly what he'd learned about such primitive times, such oils were organically based, and highly flammable. He was sure of it, as he'd seen a number of oil lamps in both the prison, and the chambers under the arena. If they could create enough of a diversion…

The proprietor of the shop was both surprised at the sudden rush of gladiators into his establishment, and then relieved of all further concern by several of the escapees. A few would-be customers who chose the wrong moment to turn the corner were likewise dealt with, and the freed men proceeded to ransack the place. Apparently an eatery of some sort, it was full of food in various forms, and Jolly told Ferris to grab as much as he possibly could. Then, with Bibon, he toppled one of the huge jars, and the thick oil poured all over the shop and out into the street.

"_Ayi!" _shouted someone in the street, and turned to run. Jolly ignored them, as he and Bibon knocked over another barrel of oil. A torch was found, and soon the entire shop was in flames.

"It'll spread!" said Jolly to the other Colonial, as the burning liquid splashed against the building across the narrow way. "They can't chase us _and _fight the fire, too."

"Where to now, sir?" asked Ferris.

"We try and set more fires, and then get the Hades out of Serenity. And weapons. We need weapons, and then we can head north."

"North?"

"Apollo and I scanned an abandoned townsite there. Just a few killometrons. We can hold up there, and then see where we stand."

"Gotcha, sir."

"_Hard over!"_ shouted Croft, as fire spat from the second intruder ship. Confident behind their cloaking screen, the other had altered course, moving in on the shuttle. As before, they had apparently expected to reap a harvest of captives.

Instead, their harvest consisted of a twenty-five megon load laser salvo, at almost point-blank range, from one of the Mark X's guns. Momentarily caught off balance, they had let the shuttle go by. Castor activated the ECM, then prepared for evasive maneuvers, as the alien recovered itself, and picked up speed to follow. Once more, the alien drew close, and Croft targeted her, this time impacting her screens with an air-to-air missile. It flashed brilliantly against the alien's shields, once more staggering her.

But she was not out yet. She came around, and dropped her cloak. Bearing down on the Colonial shuttle, her weapons spat back. The shuttle rocked, but managed to hold her course. Her guns recycled, and Croft ordered hard over. As they banked, he fired, one laser pulse striking the underside of the intruder. Then, a moment later, as the alien came around for another pass at the less-nimble shuttle…

It was slammed by two blue pencils of light, sparks and debris flowering off her hull. The Cylon fighter roared past, and the shuttle fired again, once more achieving a direct hit. The intruder ship streaked by, trailing wreckage, but did not turn.

"He's heading straight for the planet," said Athena.

"But look at his reentry window, sir, ma'am," said Castor, indicating his scanner. "And he's not slowing. If he doesn't pull up…"

"He'll burn up," said Adama. He watched the scanner for a moment, then turned to Croft. "Continue on towards the coordinates of the other ship. There's nothing we could do for them anyway."

"Sir."

The fire had spread quickly, not surprising with the hot, dry weather and the old wood comprising many of the structures. Within scant centons, one entire end of that block had been engulfed, and many of the inhabitants had fled screaming into the streets, piling confusion on confusion. The city guard had, it seemed, been alerted, but the mad throngs only got in their way, as they made their crude efforts to fight the fire.

But Jolly and his troop did not hang around to be roasted alive. Once the fire was well established, they had made their way through twisting alleys, finding another shop. This one was a blacksmith's, and soon it too, and the surrounding buildings, were going up in flames. But now, Jolly and the escapees were both better armed and protected.

"I saw what looked like ancient-style wagons, near the arena," said Ferris.

"Me too," added Bibon. "The animals aren't exactly like an equus, but if we can steal a cart, or maybe some of those chariot things…"

"I think we're on the same wavelon, Bibon." Jolly watched from cover, as several locals poured out from the tunnels under the arena, presumably to fight the fires. "Okay, we steal transport, and we get out of the city. We free as many Humans as we can find. The other slaves too. And we set the arena on fire. Got it?"

"Gotcha sir," said Ferris.

"On your wake, sir," nodded Bibon.

"Okay, you two pass the word to the rest of these guys, as best you can," said Jolly, hefting his sword. "Let's go!"

As per Adama's orders, the Raider set down across a dried wadi from the alien slaver ship, guns pointed in that direction. The Cylons got out, and approached, pulse blast rifles at the ready. One of the aliens fired, and barely missed. Agrestis fired back, not missing. The alien's legs went out from under it, and after a few moments screaming, it was still. Many of the slaves were screaming, terrified at this new horror. Once the slavers were either down or disarmed, Furcifer spoke up.

"Are any of you from the Colonial Fleet?"

"Interesting," said Croft, as the shuttle descended into the planet's atmosphere.

"What?" asked Adama. Croft motioned towards one of the ports. Far below, one of the native townsites was on fire. "Was it attacked?"

"No sign of it, sir. The alien ships didn't get close enough, from our tracking data."

"I see. What of the other alien vessel?"

"We'll be on her position in two centons, mark," said Castor. "Picking up the Cylon telemetry, sir. It looks like the two Centurions have the bad guys covered." He noticed Adama shaking his head. "Sir?"

"Just thinking, Sergeant. I never thought to see a time when we'd actually be working with a pair of Cylons."

"Well, sir, as one of my Academy guest instructors used to say, 'If you don't adapt to using the materials at hand, you've already lost'."

"Sounds familiar Sergeant, who was your instructor?"

"Guest lecture to Elite Squadron security cadets by Commander Adama, attendance mandatory by order of the Academy Commandant," smiled Castor.

"Adama wryly smiled back, "Smart man, the Commandant.

"Sir!" said Boomer, eyes on the scopes. "There's a large body of life forms, on a heading from the burning townsite, to where the disabled alien craft is."

"What sort of life forms?" asked Adama.

"Human, sir."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jolly's assault on the arena was superbly timed, although he could never have planned it so well if he'd tried. The crowds for the morning games had begun arriving, today apparently being some kind of local holiday, shortly before the fire alarm had been raised, and people had streamed out to help fight it. In the confusion, no one seemed to take notice or care about a group of gladiators in the vicinity of the building. As his military mind worked furiously, Jolly smiled at the sight of the huge wooden beams making up much of the structure. Stone, it seems, was reserved for only the most important buildings, and the arena had only a brick foundation, and marble façade. Everything above that was made of wood.

"Sir?" asked Ferris, as his chief scrutinized the arena.

"Okay, go! You know what to do."

"For the glory of Caprica!" said Ferris, and he headed off with four men. About half a centon later, Jolly led his group through another door. Almost at once, he knocked over a brazier, setting a pile of straw mattresses ablaze. As they moved through the structure, some opposed them, but the few guards they met were quickly dispatched. Jolly took the keys from one guard's belt, and began unlocking cell doors. He'd just slid the key into the last one when…

"_Ugh'Shznahkt!" _screamed a voice, and Jolly turned. There in the passage, blocking his escape, was a hulking fellow, armed with a huge sword.

"Oh frack!" was all he managed to get out, recognizing this one as the sadistic trainer, before the alien attacked him. "Go!" he shouted at the one he'd freed, as the guard drew his weapon. It swung, it's huge rippling arms bespeaking enormous strength. Jolly dodged the first blow, and the other's sword bit a huge chunk out of the wall, sending bits of brick flying. Quickly scurrying, Jolly was as quickly pursued, and the trollish swordsman attacked again. Jolly ducked, and a table was hacked in half, then he got a strike in. His blade sliced along the other's left thigh, up from the knee towards the groin. A howl of pain filled the room, then was replaced by a foul string of cursing from the other. Attacked once more with renewed fury, Jolly blocked with his sword as best he could, the strength of the other's blow nearly forcing him to his knees.

All around them the fire was spreading, the air rapidly thickening with smoke. Jolly kicked the other in one knee, his heavy boot making the other howl. He kicked again, and the other fell back, knocking over another fire pan, spewing hot coals everywhere, giving Jolly time to roll out of the way. In bare moments it was attacking again, slashing at Jolly with sickening near-misses. Jolly replied with a stroke at the other's neck, then dodged. He missed, but opened an ugly rip in the other's face. It screamed, then attacked with renewed fury. One chop of the huge blade came close enough to feel, ripping through a wooden beam as thick as a man's thigh.

Which served Jolly well. As the beam was sliced through, dust and wood fragments rained down from above on the hulking swordsman. Grabbing the opportunity, Jolly thrust upwards, burying his sword in the goblin's vitals. It bellowed, then pulled away, sliding off the blade. Jolly attacked once more, ripping the other open with a hard slash. The alien staggered, crazed with pain, and trying to hold it's guts in. Jolly pulled back for another blow, but would never need it. Flames licking through the floor boards from beneath had done their work, and it collapsed, taking the other to a fiery demise. It's screams filed his ears, and he closed his eyes for a moment against the stinging smoke. He opened them to see that end of the room almost fully involved, and ran for the only exit still open to him.

"SIR!" cried a voice, and he looked, seeing Bibon, already aboard a wagon of some kind. Behind him were at least a dozen liberated slaves. "This way!"

"Right." Jolly made for the men, and climbed into the conveyance next to Bibon. It was a chariot, drawn by two of the ugly lizard creatures, but Jolly ignored that. "Okay, men, let's get the Hades…"

He stopped, as something _twanged _through the air. Jolly felt a sharp pain, and screamed.

"She's blown up," said Omega, on the bridge of the _Galactica, _to Tigh. The Colonel looked at the scans. The damaged alien vessel had continued burrowing into the planet's atmosphere, unable to either slow itself or make any sort of course correction. As predicted, it began to burn, trailing a long tongue of fire behind it as its hull slowly boiled away. Then, it vanished in a powerful blossom of fire.

"Oh Lord," said Tigh, watching. "Well, at least we're down one enemy ship."

"Colonel, look at the radiation spike on that explosion," said Starbuck. "Lords of Kobol, what in Hades was she carrying?"

Everyone, even the locals trying to battle the fires, looked up, as a new sun momentarily filled the sky. The Cylons did too, seeing only data. The alien intruders, realizing what it all meant, knew also.

Jolly and the troops had seen it too, as they rushed their way out of the city gate. A stout affair of heavy wooden beams and stone blocks, it was currently open. A few guards tried to block the way, but were ridden down by the carts and chariots. The beasts of burden smelled and felt the fire too, and seemed as anxious to get away as the fugitives. Once outside, they saw a few carts heading towards them, but they offered no resistance. Lashing the beasts to greater speed, they were off across the plain for the ruined city.

An army of furious locals in pursuit.

The hatch on the Mark X opened even before the dust had settled, and four of Croft's heavily armed troopers emerged. The rest followed, securing the area before permitting Adama to step out onto the alien soil. As soon as he was recognized, the Cylon Centurions reported to him. Among the Humans assembled here were over twenty from the _Hegal, _including women and children, among the slaves freed from the alien vessel. Furcifer reported that his sensors detected scores of more Human bio-signs, inside the mining facility within the walls of the ruined city. Adama relayed this to Croft, who at once assigned four of his men to investigate and free the slaves. Their captors were to be taken for interrogation if possible. If not…do not hesitate.

"Sir," replied Corporal Kuntz, and led the men off on their mission. As he departed, Castor reported to Adama: "That group is still approaching, Commander. In carts and chariots," he said, the bemused tone thick in his voice. "They'll be here in less than a centar, sir."

"Very well."

"And sir? There's a second group, right behind them." He handed Adama his datapad, screen showing real-time satellite data. The first group was racing towards them from the burning city, another group in pursuit. "Humans in the first, sir."

"And the second?"

"None, sir."

"I see."

High up in the hills, in the pass where the old crashed ship lay, people were gathering. Hundreds, even thousands of Humans, armed with steel weapons, bladed and otherwise, and riding in wheeled vehicles pulled by equii, began heading, nay racing, down towards the cities of the plain.

Looking behind him as much as he dared to, Jolly could see the ugly pillar of black smoke rising into the sky from the burning city. He had to admit to himself that he felt no serious remorse for his actions, nor for the deaths he had caused. Maybe, later, if there _was_ a later, he'd feel different.

"Sir," said Ferris, in the chariot with him, "you're hurt. Let me take the reins." Jolly nodded, still trying to fight the pain of the arrow that had hit him on the way out of the city. Buried in his left arm, the thing hurt like Hades. He wasn't sure how deep it had gone or what damage it had done, but he could feel his arm and side, wet with blood, as the chariot bounced them over the rough terrain. He nearly shrieked as Ferris broke off the shaft, biting down hard enough to draw blood from his lip.

"I can't do more, bouncing around like this," said Ferris. The group was passing over a crude wooden bridge, spanning a nearly-dry wadi. If anything, they bounced even more. He ripped a piece of cloth from his own tunic, and tied a crude bandage around Jolly. "This will have to do."

"It'll be fine," said Jolly, secretly wondering if it would be.

The firefight in the mining/smelting facility had been short, though not particularly sweet. The Warriors had encountered fierce resistance from the goblins, and had taken a couple of arrow wounds in the process. The enslavers had not fared so well, ripped to shreds by the Colonial's weapons. Only two prisoners were taken; one of local stock, and the other the race that had flown the intruder ship. Bound, they were hauled before Commander Adama, trailed by almost a hundred former slaves, all but three Human. Adama looked at the intruder aliens, and had to fight to keep his stomach in line. Truly, he had never seen a race so hideous in appearance.

"Commander!" said a voice, and he turned. Standing next to Boomer, he recognized Captain Chu, the _Hegal'_s skipper. Next to him, were others kidnapped from the ship. All were practically naked, and looked as if they had been brutally treated, as indeed they had been. Athena spoke to the non-Fleet Humans, finding confirmation that their speech was similar to that of the Kians. After exchanging a few words with the liberated slaves via his daughter, and ordering water and clothes brought them from the shuttle, Adama's gaze fell on the slavers, and he scowled.

"Boomer, get me a Languatron from the shuttle."

"Right away, sir." As Boomer went to get one, Centurion Agrestis spoke to the Commander.

"By your command. A large hoard of creatures is closing on this position." He raised on arm, and pointed.  
"How far?"

"Approximately one maxim, and closing."

"I see. You and Centurion Furcifer go investigate at once."

"By your command."

Jolly spared another look behind him. Sure enough, the cloud of dust rising into the sky betrayed the enemy pursuing them. While he was more adept at judging things from a scanner readout in a cockpit, it seemed quite clear that the bad guys were gaining on them.

_Not surprising, considering the way these folks drive, _Jolly told himself. Some of the escapees seemed adept at these sorts of conveyances, others were as a bad as a teenager his first day in driver's ed. Thankfully, there had been someone skilled as a hosteller among the escapees. He wasn't sure he could have hitched the beasts up in anything like the needed time. Saddles and harnesses weren't among the skills stressed at the Colonial Academy.

As he debated his next moves, and fought the pain in his arm, he could see smoke up ahead, and barely, on the blurry line on the horizon, the ruined city. Their goal was nearly within reach. He looked both left and right. Only one escapee seemed to have stolen a bow during their break, which made defending their redoubt problematical. Still, rugged and broken terrain was a factor in their favor, since the enemy could not use their chariots and mounts among the ruined buildings. Jolly tried to remember everything he had been taught at the Academy about fighting in an urban environment, house to house. True, these weren't Cylons, with laser rifles and explosives, not to mention dull and unimaginative minds, but the basic principles were certainly the same.

"Frack!" he swore, as an arrow, wide of the mark, hit the ground to one side. He looked back again. Closer. Damnation! At least another couple of killometrons to go, and they were nearly within range of the bows.

"They're shooting at us!" said Ferris.

"Yeah, I saw. We gotta go faster!" shouted Jolly, and Ferris thrashed the reins harder. He motioned to the one with the bow, and the other returned fire. He must have been awfully good, for Jolly saw one of their pursuers go down, to be crushed under the wheels of those behind. He squinted into the glare ahead, attention momentarily seized by something flashing in the sunlight ahead of them. Again he urged Ferris to greater speed.

"Trying, sir. But this terrain makes it tough."

"I know, Ferris, but…"

"Sir?"

"_Oh Frack!"_

Adama labored to keep the disgust both off his face, and out of his voice. Not for the sake of the creatures before him, but for that of his own troops. Doubly so in his daughter's sight. Personally, he didn't care _what _the hideous slaver thought of him, or his tone. Not that the things had been all that responsive. Activating the Languatron, he had tried communicating with the leader of the aliens, identified by his elaborate colored sash worn across his uniform. At least Adama _assumed_ it was a he. The creature was so unlike any life form he had ever encountered, it could be male, female, neuter, or some class as yet unknown to science. He also found it hard to look the thing in the eye, its "face" was so horrid, but as Commander, he must be the strongest among them, the one who never flinches.

"I am Adama, Commander of the Battlestar _Galactica. _Who are you?" he asked, following standard first contact protocols. The creature did not respond, and he asked again. Still, there was no response. He motioned to Athena, and she checked the Languatron settings. All were fine. Angry, Corporal Kuntz pressed his rifle to the thing's face, raising it upwards with the barrel.

"The Commander asked you a question, slug!" he spat. Adama ordered him back, but Kuntz's face remained angry. "Sorry, sir. I just was thinking about what we saw in the ruins. The way they were being treated, especially the children. It was…"

"I understand, Corporal." Adama returned to his prisoner, whose single eye now seemed to focus on him. After a few moments, it spoke, voice like a garden weeder being scrapped across a chalkboard. The Languatron spewed gibberish at first, but Adama kept at it. The alien kept speaking, no one needing a machine to render the arrogance and contempt in the tone. Finally, they got something.

"Insect!" it said, looking directly at Adama. "Inferior garbage race!" The rendering was stiff and slow, but it was a start.

"Hey! You watch your mouth!" snarled Kuntz, jabbing his rifle into the alien. It spat out more words, and as did another of the aliens.

"No right you hold us!" said the leader alien. "Release us, or you all die will."

"Cylons, chapter two," muttered Kuntz.

"You cannot escape us!" said the leader. "Our space is vast, and you puny worms will be ours. You will not steal what is ours!" The alien looked from Adama to the rest, then back again. "You are as fungus before us!"

"We did not come here to steal," replied Adama. "We seek nothing that is yours. But could not some sort of dialogue…"

"There can be no dialogue with fungus!" shouted the leader, voice thick with contempt and disgust. He tried to rise, but Kuntz shoved him back down with his rifle. As he did so, Boomer came up to Adama.

"Sir. The Centurions report contact with the approaching hoard."

"And?"

"It seems there are two of them sir. Both headed towards us."

"Hades…No time to lift off and…Major Croft! Prepare your men for ground assault!"

"Sir!"

Jolly decided that there was no way his day was going to get _any_ worse. Not only was there a hoard of enraged goblins behind, pursuing him across the surface of an alien planet in chariots, but in his path were two Cylon Centurions, their rifles poised to fire. Having no weaponry beyond his bronze blade, Jolly felt sure that today was without a doubt the day his number was scheduled to come up.

_Well, at least it's Cylons, _he told himself, and drew his sword. His path would take his chariot within an arm's reach of one Cylon, so he raised the blade, prepared to go down swinging. He could see the Centurion's red eye move back and forth, and the Centurion had apparently seen him, for it drew it's own sword. Jolly slashed with all his remaining strength. He felt the _clang_ of contact, but the Centurion blocked it with his own sword, raising a few sparks but little else. Soon, the Cylon was falling behind, lost in the clouds of dust. Jolly looked ahead, and saw their fighter coming into view. His heart sank, realizing he had led the rest to utter destruction, but the rage to fight was burning brightly now, and he vowed he wouldn't die without taking a few with him.

Behind, even over the noise of the beasts and the wheels, he could hear the whine of laser rifles behind him, and the scream of animals and trolls. _What the frack? _The Cylons had all but ignored them, instead opening fire on their pursuers. None of this made the slightest bit of sense.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

More and more people, Humans in crude conveyances and wearing equally crude armor for the most part, continued to pour down out of the passes in the mountains, racing towards the cities below. The smoke from the fires Jolly had set was the perfect beacon in the clear sky, and perhaps a lucky sign. As the time wore on, more and more headed towards the cities, their weapons flashing in the sun.

As had those of the two Cylons. After letting Jolly's group go, both Centurions had turned their attention towards the oncoming threat. Both Cylons, of course, shouted "HALT!" as they were programmed to do. Somewhat to the surprise of their little electronic minds, there was no response. What Furcifer got for his trouble was an arrow, which pinged harmlessly off his armor. What the alien got for his was a blast from Furcifer's laser rifle. The Cylon saw one of the attackers go down in the dust, crushed under the wheels of the chariot behind, then a second as Agrestis fired as well. The next moment, Furcifer went spinning, struck by a rock on the head. He fell, and the hoard ran over him.

"Sir," said Boomer. "Centurion Agrestis reports that they have killed six of the attackers, but the other Centurion is down."

"Estimated numbers?"

"Close to a hundred, sir."

"I see. Let's get ready." Adama removed his cape, and donned the protective vest Croft handed him from the shuttle. Several of the most serious cases among the liberated slaves were put inside under the care of the medic, and then Adama turned. The ground was thundering, and the dust was filling the sky.

But he recognized Humans when he saw them. Dirty and unkempt, they were still unmistakeable. Clenching his pistol tightly, he watched as they came into range, and began to slow. The beasts that pulled the ancient contraptions were bizarre, and even from here smelled hideous, but he ignored it. One of the chariots slowed, and covered by a dozen laser rifles, came to a jerky stop about five metrons in front of him. One of the men in it squinted at him, then dismounted, and came towards him, limping and slow.

"Hold!" he ordered. The other had sheathed a battered-looking blade, then walked up to him. He was filthy, stunk, was dressed in a dirty tunic or sash that had seen many better days, was bloody, and his hair and beard made him look like a madman escaped from an asylum. But Adama recognized the eyes.

"Lieutenant Jolly," said the other, voice raspy and labored, "reporting for duty, Commander." He saluted, then looked at the shuttle. "Could I get some water, sir?"

Jolly got plenty, along with his companions. But introductions were short, and the medic barely had time to excise the cruelly barbed arrowhead and spray an antiseptic patch on his wound, when they saw the others approaching. The Colonials raised their weapons, standing their ground, when the others slowed, the apparent leader holding up a hand for them to stop. Barely a hundred metrons apart, the two forces stared at each other, and not a few looked at the intruder slave ship.

"Let's waste 'em now, Commander," said Kuntz, still in a lather over what he'd seen in the mine. "All they've got is stone age junk."

"Corporal, please…" began Adama, when the issue was decided for him. One of the aliens released an arrow, barely missing Jolly, and striking Adama's vest. It did no harm, but in the rush, Croft ordered the troops to open fire.

"Yes?" said Tigh, on the _Galactica _bridge.

"The Commander has found our people," reported Omega. "They've been engaged by hostile locals."

"Give it to me here," ordered Tigh, and moved to the screen, watching the real-time satellite telemetry. "Helm, break position. Set course for the planet."

"Sir."

The first volley ripped through the enemy ranks, taking down at least seven of the attacking locals and one animal. One however, armed with a huge and vicious-looking ax, had actually succeeded in breaking through towards Adama, knocking the Commander down. Jolly, despite his injuries, defended his CO, raising his pistol. He fired and missed. A lucky swing from the attacker clove the weapon in two, sending the muzzle flying, and Jolly drew his sword. He ducked one blow, but not the second, receiving a deep gash in his already injured left arm. He clenched his teeth, biting back a scream, and buckling to his knees. But as the other raised his weapon once more, Jolly gripped his blade and thrust in front of him, ripping into the other's knees, then upwards, skewering the troll on his blade. With a scream, the attacker crumpled, and Jolly yanked his bloody blade free, then collapsed atop his slain foe.

Several of the surviving attackers withdrew, to a slight rise jut outside the range of a bow, totally ignorant of the range of Colonial lasers. One of them, clad from head to foot in metal and leather, waved his sword in the air, screaming invectives at the Colonials. The air seemed to hang heavy with anticipation.

"Hold it right there!" snarled Kuntz, as one of the slaver aliens tried to slip away, with everyone's attention diverted. He smashed the creature across the face with his rifle butt, and it fell in a heap. Pointing his weapon at the rest, he made it clear that next time, it would be the other end, and returned his attention to Boomer's cry.

"Commander! Look!"

Adama did so, seeing two Cylons heading their way. Not waiting for orders, both Centurions began blasting away at the attackers, catching them in a pincer. In response, some of them tried to break out, but fire from Croft's men kept them in check. Arrows and spears flew, and Croft took a hit. A spear tore at Boomer's hand, and he lost his pistol. One of the trolls made it in close, and he fought the thing hand to hand. It knocked him down, but then screamed as Athena, coming up behind it, rolled and body-blocked it to the ground. Quickly moving out from under it, she grabbed its sword, and hacked an arm away, then ran it through, skewering it to the ground like a bug on a card. She helped Boomer to his feet, and they exchanged thanks.

It was bloody, but the end was not in doubt. After just a bare twenty centons, the alien force had been reduced to barely a dozen of their warriors still standing.

"Go!" shouted Adama, Languatron tied into the shuttle's PA system. "Be gone!" A few extra volleys from his pistol at the goblins seemed to seal it. What was left of the attackers turned and ran.

"Sir," said Boomer, "Colonel Tigh on the line for you. He wants to know if you require assistance."

With the area apparently secure, at least for the moment, Tigh was told to stand by. The medics began examining the freed slaves, many of whom had serious injuries, in conjunction with malnutrition, thirst, and overwork. Adama personally examined the mining facility, and at once understood Corporal Kuntz's outrage. Many of those enslaved here had not lived to see freedom, and their bodies were piled next to a line of cooking pots, ready to be recycled as….as _food_ for the rest, refuse dumped in a pit. It was like a Cylon chamber of horrors, without the Cylons. Adama felt his gorge rise at the sight of this…this Diabolean evil, and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, barely succeeding in keeping his stomach under control. With his voice thick with anger, he ordered two of the troopers to set their weapons on high, and the corpses were reduced to ashes. Then, the whole facility was brought down as well to mark their tomb.

Upon his return, the alien leader once more began shouting at Adama, demanding to be released. "…no right to hold us!"

"You attacked us!" replied Boomer, barely keeping his anger in check. "You kidnapped our people from our ships. We did nothing to you!"

"You trespassed into our territory!" said another alien, equally incensed it seemed. "We take what is our right!"

"You have no right to enslave anyone!" said Adama, standing over the aliens, face like the Wrath of God. "All peoples have the right to be free. To determine…" He stopped, as the aliens began to shake and jiggle. At first, he was unsure what was wrong, but the Languatron rendered the sounds the aliens were producing as the last thing he would have expected.

They were laughing at him! The absurdity of it was slow to sink in. Here, on a planet he didn't even know the name of, creatures of a race he'd never even met were actually laughing in his face.

"And what on Kobol is so funny?" he managed to get out, his own fury rising.

Freedom, it seemed. The aliens had actually found his comments about freedom to be utterly uproarious for some reason. Adama didn't know why, nor did he particularly care at this point. He only knew that his contempt for this creature, indeed for its whole race, was growing by leaps and bounds.

As apparently was its for his. When Adama turned away slightly, the one in the elaborate sash, the one so bizarrely jocular, leapt up from where he sat, speed surprising in one so topheavy, and grabbed the Commander, shackles yanked back against his throat.

"Back!" shouted the alien, tridactyl hands pulling cruelly on the restraint. Adama nearly stumbled as the other tried to back away from the Warriors. "Release us." No one moved. "Release us, or I kill him!"

"NO!" choked out Adama. "Don't…do it!" He got a harder yank for his trouble, the alien snarling something the translator couldn't render in his ear. Then, it squealed in pain, as something struck the back of its "head". One of the freed children had, unseen by all, picked up a rock, and thrown it at the other. It stumbled, it's hold on Adama loosening. The Commander took the opportunity to first jab the creature with his elbow as hard as he could, grab the slick alien hands, and yank them forward, freeing himself. He dashed away, leaving the creature exposed.

Which it was not for long. No sooner was Adama clear, then Athena opened fire, full automatic. The alien was ripped apart by multiple laser rifle blasts, and with a scream, fell in a heap of shredded pulp. A second one made a dash for it, but was at once cut down, also by Athena. Kuntz, Croft, and the rest at once pointed their weapons at the others, but none seemed anxious to follow the example of their erstwhile companions.

Another shuttle, filled with medical personnel, arrived about a half-centar later, to tend for and stabilize those in the worst condition. Sadly, it was too late for some, including one from the _Hegal, _brutally beaten by the mine guards, apparently for the simple reason of him being available. Still, Adama told himself, it could have been worse. Of the sixty-five people kidnapped from the Fleet by the aliens, fifty-one had so far been found alive.

Searching for the rest, however, could prove something of a problem. The _Galactica _reported that vast numbers of Humans, descending from the mountains, had launched an all-out attack on the "goblin" cities. Aside from the one Jolly had set fire to, two had apparently fallen to the attackers, a third was being besieged, and a ferocious battle was in progress in the plain between them and the fourth.

"Lords, we don't want to get involved in _that," _said Athena, looking at the telemetry in the shuttle.

"But we are," said Adama, frowning.

"Commander?" asked Athena, unsure of what she'd heard.

"Those are Humans. Brothers, from the Thirteenth Tribe. They are doing what we did, battling an enslaving, sociopathic foe. They need our help."

"But…"

"Major Croft!"

"Did I hear right?" said Boomer, trying to communicate with the local Humans.

"Just what I would expect father to do," said Athena, looking at her lover. Boomer nodded, and returned to the freed men.

The hoard that had descended from the mountains had already captured one of the cities of the plain, the conquerors busily wiping it off the map in a barrage of primitive cannon fire, and looting. The second one was following suit, and a third townsite was now the center of a vicious siege. And, in the plains between, Human and "Goblin" warriors were doing battle, neither giving nor asking quarter. Chariots clashed, arrows blackened the sky, volleys of spears ripped through armor and flesh, even primitive muskets cracked, yet neither side seemed the least bit inclined to retreat.

But both saw the strange monster that roared from the sky, to soar across the battlefield. For a moment, the goblins cheered, believing it to be a ship from the slavers. Cheers soon turned to cries of dismay, as guns on the shuttle's hull turned towards them, and began spitting fire. Chariots, beasts, and troops were blown to bits, as weapons undreamed tore into their ranks. When the Human warriors on the ground saw that their foes alone were being struck down, they renewed their attacks, and within mere centons, the trollish fighters lay strewn across the battlefield, countless dead piled in twisted heaps, their shattered army in a route.

They headed towards the one town as yet untouched, seeking refuge. But no refuge would be theirs this day. At Adama's order, a single missile from the Mark X shuttle struck the city's gate, reducing it and much of the circuit wall to dust. Caught between the horrifying thing raining down destruction from the sky, and their pursuers, the surviving goblins threw down their arms, or fell on them.

"That's better," said Adama, as the issue below reached final settlement.

"Sir," said Croft, the wound to his neck now bandaged, "Cassiopeia reports first shuttle of injured ready be to transported to the _Galactica. _And she says Jolly's going to make it, Commander."

"Good, Major. Best news I've had all day." Adama smiled a moment. "Tell her we'll be retuning to the mine site."

"Yes, sir."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next two days went by quickly for the Commander, perhaps, Adama later mused, because it was mercifully free of visits from Sire Antipas, or any of the Council, save Siress Tinia. All the surviving members of the Fleet kidnapped by the aliens had been brought home, and were undergoing medical exams in Life Station. Many had serious injuries or infections, and it would be some time before they were fit for duty again.

All the goblin cities along the coastal plain had fallen to the Human attackers, and Adama had elected to open contact with their leaders. With Athena and Boomer by his side, along with the stowaways from Ki, meaningful communications were established, allowing them to both finally fill in the blanks of this particular little mystery, and use their good offices to find the rest of the missing personnel. Within a day, they were found among the Humans liberated from their goblin enslavers.

The crashed ship, now being examined by Wilker and a team of technicians, was indeed from the same planet as Pili and Kudur-Mabug. A shuttle, identical to the one flown up from Ki by Boomer and Starbuck, was found, wrecked and cannibalized, still stowed inside the ancient vessel. What little that could be recovered from her flight recorder, as well as surviving printed material and what the Humans could tell him, confirmed Adama's suspicions. The situation on Ki, after a breakaway group from the Kobollian refugees had colonized the planet, had gone from bright and hopeful, to dismal in fairly short order. While scientists labored to recover lost technologies, the political situation had steadily bumped and skidded its way towards the abyss. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, one group had decided to escape, using ships employing an experimental, untried FTL drive system.

They had escaped, bare days it seemed before the arsenals on Ki were unleashed, the ships separating, each heading towards different stars their probes told them might have habitable planets. Unfortunately for those headed here, their ship's main drive had malfunctioned along the way, turning a voyage of a few sectars into one lasting more than a dozen yahren, and by the time they arrived, the ship had suffered serious damage from cometary debris. Once in orbit, systems deteriorating, it was unable to go further, and separating from the drive section, they had landed.

Hard. Their ship had barely survived atmospheric passage, and come down in a high mountain valley, almost half those aboard perishing in the crash. Those who had survived had set about salvaging what they could, and trying to build a life for themselves on this hostile new world.

A world they soon found to be inhabited by the "goblins", who called their planet Boron-Din. Initial attempts at contact were met with violence, and several skirmishes were fought, the Human's superior weapons, machine guns, explosives, even a few energy weapons salvaged from Kobol, convincing the locals to keep their distance for a time. As yahren passed however, and their supplies of ammunition and spare parts ran out, they were forced to adopt more primitive means of defense. As their numbers grew from the initial thirty-five or so survivors, the vicious, quarrelsome goblins began to kidnap some, for slave labor. In order to survive, small bands migrated across the mountains, establishing settlements far from the troll cities, hacked out of bog, forest and rocky waste. There, Adama was told, elements of the culture brought from Ki were kept alive as best as possible. Superior agriculture, building methods, as well as metallurgy and a surprisingly widespread trade network. The Commander nodded, noticing the steel swords the Humans wielded were far superior to the crude bronze and iron weapons produced by the goblins, as were the powder and shot firearms some of them had wielded. In the thousands of yahren since their arrival, the Human numbers had grown to well over a million, and having at last grown weary of increasing slave raids and murder, they had decided it was time for retribution.

"They certainly deserved it," said Jolly, now looking considerably more his old self with a shave and a new uniform. "They were animals, Commander. Killing for the fun of it. Even the Cylons don't _enjoy_ what they do."

"But what's the relationship between the locals, and these aliens?' asked Apollo. All the refugees could tell them was that from time to time, alien ships set down, and exchanged slaves, some taken from their villages, for the precious metals and jewels the mines produced. Conditions there were indeed terrible, with cave-ins and deaths common, but they were always fresh supplies of slaves. Where the slavers came from, or where they took the enormous wealth wrested from this world, none could say.

"I don't know, Apollo," said Adama, "but I intend to find out. If the slavers cruise these skies kidnapping and murdering with impunity, then we must know all we can about them. What about their ship?"

Their ship had so far been of little help. Damaged on the ground, Adama had wanted to salvage it if possible. Jolly and Boomer had forced the surviving aliens to try and fly it and a few survivors up to the _Galactica. _It made it, roughly, off the ground, and barely managed to make orbit. Then, once they had the _Galactica _lined up for a landing, one of the hideous creatures had tried to kill them all, leaping for the controls, jettisoning something from the craft and then diving towards the planet at wild speed. Both Warriors were knocked to the deck and all seemed lost. Without warning, one of the freed slaves leapt into action and gripped the alien with massive arms, and wrestled them to the deck, as something exploded violently near them, rocking them and sending the craft into a crazy spin. Boomer was stunned, having hit the deck hard, and Jolly tried to make it back into the pilot's seat, but the controls were a mystery, shorting circuits and dead indicators not helping. He turned, surprised, as the knobby-headed one from the cell next to his, slid into the seat beside him. Using his instincts, the Viper pilot, in concert with a near-stranger, managed to bring the alien craft in, the LSO and his crew screaming in terror, ripping off a wing and crumpling the undercarriage in the process.

"I thought only Starbuck made landings like this!" said Boomer, making it back to his feet, breathing hard and covering the slavers with his laser.

"My turn," replied Jolly, and passed out again.

At the moment, Wilker's people were going over the alien craft, but results were going to be slow in coming. The hits it had taken from the Cylons, damage from the explosion, and Jolly's landing, had damaged it severely. More than half the circuits on the ship were charred and blown, the rest barely functioning. The systems Adama had wanted most to learn about, the cloak and the matter transmission device, were largely piles of fried junk. Still, analysis had not been entirely fruitless. Some of the ship's memory banks had survived intact, and Wilker had some preliminary results to give Adama.

"As we learned," he said, in his lab, one memory module on the bench before him, tied in to numerous instruments, "the planet below is called Boron-Din, which translates roughly as 'Rotten planet'. From the data we've gotten so far, the aliens in the slaver ships first discovered it long ago. Centuries ago, perhaps much longer. We're not sure yet. It is rich in mineral wealth, auric, argentric, and many valuable crystalline forms. They came to exploit the wealth here, but they didn't do it themselves."

"Slaves," said Tigh.

"Yes. They brought the creatures that Jolly encountered here as slaves to dig the ores and crystals for them. But, and we don't know why, suddenly the whole operation was abandoned. For centuries we think. The goblins were left here, and once free, multiplied and began to build a civilization of their own."

"If you can call _that_ a civilization," said Jolly, injured arm still in a sling, looking over the battered Centurion Furcifer. Knocked down in the battle, he'd had the left arm badly crumpled, the left leg was off-line and being dragged, and his voice synthesizer was out. Seeing the Centurion laying in bits on the table almost made Jolly, wounded arm still in a sling, feel sorry for the Cylon. "Gladiatorial games. Slavery. Vicious beatings…" He broke off with a curse. "They deserved what they got, Commander."

"Considering that they were themselves kidnapped and brought here, brutally treated and then abandoned, it isn't surprising what sort of culture they developed. Still, I can't help but agree, Jolly," replied Adama.

"Anyway," interrupted Wilker, his usual tact boiling over, "after some considerable lapse, the slavers returned. They found the goblins, who call themselves the…_N'Glak, _by the way, too numerous to enslave, or whatever. So, they reopened their mining operations, bringing in other slaves from outside this planetary system, to both work their mining operation, and sell to the N'Glak. So far, we've found seven different races among those who were enslaved here, Commander. None known to us."

"Made it pay twice over. But what about the Humans from Ki already here?" asked Tigh. "Why not just enslave them? Why bring in slaves from outside the system at all? This doesn't make sense to me."

"A lot of what we've found so far doesn't make sense, Colonel. There's no mention in the data we've salvaged so far, but from what we've been told, they must have known about them. In any event, all slaves brought here were paid for by the N'Glak in precious metals and gems. The value of what you found below was itself staggering, Commander. Enough auric and argentric alone to pay for at least five shuttles, aside from the value of the gems. Incredible."

"And what do we know about the slavers themselves?" asked Apollo.

"We're still working on the data, Captain," said Wilker, "but it seems they hail from somewhere called _Ziklag. _No data yet as to where that might be, and no reference to such a word or race in any of our own data banks. As we've seen, they are highly advanced, more advanced in some ways than we are."

"How so?" asked Adama.

"Well, their matter-transmission device for one thing. From what little is left, they seemed to have developed a method of data compression that leaves anything we have eating ion vapors, Commander. That and the power consumption problem that stalled our own efforts in this area. All contained in an area no bigger than a shuttle engine." Wilker shook his head. "And, their propulsion technology." He moved from the data bank to a monitor screen, on it a graphic of the alien ship. "The object they jettisoned as they neared the _Galactica_ seems to have been a fuel or energy core of some kind. Our analysis of the debris and sensor data indicates it was anti-matter."

"Anti-matter?" asked Tigh. "Isn't that just a theory?"

"No. It was first predicted in equations going back to before the birth of nuclear energy. Before the first sustained artificial fission chain reaction, even. It was, occasionally, proposed as a method of powering space vehicles, but when space flight was actually realized, it was found to be too complex from an engineering standpoint, and far, far too costly for practical use. Then, when the Marron Drive we currently use was developed for FTL propulsion, the use of tylium was deemed far more economical, and anti-matter wasn't seriously pursued."

"Seems to have worked for them," said Jolly.

"Maybe their home system lacks tylium," said Wilker. "Or perhaps their economics are different, or their physicists discovered something we did not. In any case, they made it work, and from what information remains in the ship's data banks about their drive system, it could conceivably propel a ship of equivalent mass nearly twice the speed of the _Galactica _at flank."

"Not very comforting," said Apollo.

"No," said Wilker.

Information from the data banks being thin, Adama decided that perhaps the prisoners might help him fill in the blanks on the mysterious _Ziklag._ Sadly, he was not going to get much information from that quarter. Of the slavers captured on the planet's surface, only three had survived. One had died shortly after arrival on the _Galactica_, apparently of injuries sustained in the battle, and the remaining two were being held for interrogation.

Or rather, one was. The senior-most of the aliens, again if the sashes were anything to judge by, had violently objected to being interrogated, or being _anything_ed by "mammal vermin". During his interrogation and despite being bound, the alien had, after shouting something unintelligible, attacked Sire Solon. Then, before anything more could be done, he hurled himself onto the muzzle of the guard's rifle. The alien had slid limply to the floor, apparently preferring death to questions. The last remaining one was clamped in irons, and strip-searched, after it tried to swallow something hidden in the sleeve of it's uniform. Satisfied for the moment, Adama had the creature locked into the High Security isolation ward in Life Station, behind a humming forcefield.

"Every scanner and remote analysis technique you can bring to bear, Doctor," he said, indicating the alien.

"You've got it, Commander."

But the alien was more wiley, or more determined to get the better of the Colonials, than anyone thought. After Salik had finished his preliminary examination of the dead aliens, he sent the guard for the living one. He heard a shout, the whine of multiple laser blasts, and then a scream along with the sizzling shriek of the force field being breached.

Or an attempt at it. He ran towards the isolation room, slid his security card-key into the slot, and stopped as the door opened, Cassie nearly bumping into him from behind. The inner part of the cell was designed with a double force field door, much like an airlock. After entering, one deactivated the outer field, stepped inside, reactivated it, then did the same with the inner field. Designed for patients with extremely communicable infections, potentially deadly biohazard materials, or violent mental cases, it had a completely self-contained life-support system, isolated from the rest of the ship, and served to protect both the medical staff, and the rest of the Battlestar's crew, from any stray virus or germ. The force field doors were also of extra strength, and multiply redundant. Any attempt to breach them would bring the most horrific consequences.

As it apparently had for the incarcerated alien. When Corporal Metz went to fetch the alien for medical examination, it had resisted. In the ensuing struggle, it had ended up somehow being caught by the inner force field door when it was reactivated. The results were stomach-wrenching, with the remains of the deceased creature now a mass of charred and still-smoldering goo on the floor, Corporal Metz half-collapsed on the bunk, a near-miss from the laser burning his scalp.

"I am sorry, Doctor," he said, as Salik and Cassie took it all in. "I told it to get up and come with me. He resisted, and I had to fire. It got my pistol, and we struggled. I shoved it away, into the door, and…" He indicated the fried, unrecognizeable remains on the floor.

"I understand, son," said Salik, looking at the fried remains. He turned to Cassie. "Call Commander Adama."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Colonel?"

"_Agro Ship One _reports energizer one back on-line, Commander," replied Tigh. "Energizer two will be ready for power up in less than thirty centons."

"Excellent news, Colonel," said Adama, and looked at his monitor. The still-rotating _Agro Ship One _was now beginning to resemble its former self, as one by one her lighting arrays began to return to life. As the Commander watched, a second, and then a third of her domes began to glow from within, and by the time the fourth dome was ablaze, the ship had stopped her artificial spin.

By and large, it had been four days of good news. Not only was the _Agro Ship One _nearly ready to resume her voyage, but more than half of the _Hegal's _crew had been medically cleared and returned to duty. Soon, both ships would be back to their usual efficiency, and the Fleet could resume its journey, secure in her food supply.

But not unchanged. While people were healing and ships were repairing, Adama visited the planet's surface again, this time at the invitation of the new Human rulers of Boron-Din. The goblins had been crushed, and were now few and scattering. The leader of the Humans, a man of about the same apparent age as Adama named Lugalzaggisi, along with his striking wife Shubad, wanted to know more about these strange new Humans, and Adama was more than willing to comply. He spent two and a half days with his hosts in their city, deep in the forested wilds, and was impressed. Though they lived rustically, as he had expected, Adama also saw crude steam engines propelling wheeled vehicles over paved streets, saw mills, mines, quarries, artificial lights, a primitive telegraph system, and even a _very _rough hydroelectric power station spanning one river. These Kobollian exiles had done well he decided, in keeping alive elements of their technology.

As they had with their history. In the surprisingly modern-looking house wherein they lived, Lugalzaggisi and Shubad had kept, amazingly, handed down for countless lifetimes, artifacts from Kobol itself. As he watched in utter awe, the local leader let him see, tattered and crackled but still recognizable, a scroll. Gingerly, Adama touched the ancient parchment, and thanks to his arduous researches, began to read.

**"I don't believe it**," he said, eyes wide, in an almost reverent whisper.

**"What is it, Father?" Apollo asked anxiously.**

**"Apollo, if this is what I think it is...by the Lords it is!"**

**"What, Father?" his son's voice grew anxious.**

**"_The Testament of Arkada_," Adama motioned to the top corner of the parchment. "So old, that it has to be an original autograph, or at the very least one much older than the earliest surviving manuscripts known to Colonial scholars."**

**Apollo looked down and despite the ancient Kobollian language that was almost unknown to him, the characters that clearly indicated the name "_Arkada_" were distinct to him. While the _Testament_ was well-**known to modern Colonials, the original manuscripts were long gone, and scholars still argued over which recension was the most accurate, or whether the _Testament_ itself should even be considered a genuine part of _The Book Of The Word. _Here, in front of the Commander was proof **that earlier manuscripts had indeed survived. Far from the place where it had first been written. **

**"But Father, that was written in the Colonies!" Apollo pointed out. "Arkada was part of the original group of settlers on Caprica. Or so they always said in school. How could a copy be here, unless..."**

"**Unless their journey started on Caprica, so many thousands of yahrens ago!" Adama finished. "Apollo, remember how when our tribes settled the Colonies, they destroyed their technology as a sign of repentance. Surely, this decision was not made unanimously. Perhaps there were dissenters who then decided to go out in search of the Thirteenth Tribe. Still, that would not account for all of the Humans here, since some of them show signs of having gone straight from Kobol, without reaching the Colonies. But there has to be a connection to our own 12 worlds somewhere."**

**"Yes. Uh, what's this?" asked Apollo, indicating another fragile volume.**

**"Unbelievable!" whispered Adama. "Either I am a complete fool, or this is the autobiography of the Ninth Lord of Kobol. Remember? He died just before the Exodus. See his royal _serakh_ in the corner? And this next one…The..No! _The Prophecies Of T'charu, The Eighth Lord of Kobol:" _Adama fell silent, shaking his head. **

**"I see you are impressed,**" said Lugalzaggisi, "**But there is more," he then **gestured. **Adama and Apollo soon saw their eyes beholding more** scrolls, faded holopictures, some works of art, and what turned out to be some sort of holoprojector, which sadly no longer functioned.

**Upon questioning, their hosts told them of how artifacts that had been taken from Kobol, and survived the voyage to Ki, were again taken across space when their ancestors had again been forced to flee before the atomic holocaust overwhelmed that unfortunate planet.** The ship that had brought them here had been one of many, as they knew. Also, as Adama had theorized, it had been a dispute among those headed for Earth from dying Kobol that had led to the split that resulted in Ki being settled. There had been ten ships headed for Earth, and the crew of one, from one of the tribe's more contentious clans, had spoken against the destruction of their technology and science upon reaching the new world. So vitriolic had the argument become that blood had been spilled, and the agitators had been banished, settling on Ki with all the technology they wanted.

Not surprisingly, the dissentions did not cease there. While they multiplied rapidly on the bountiful new world and quickly established cities and all that went with them, fresh disputes and splits had surfaced. Politics, economics, and religion had been among the leading bones of contention. It had gotten so bad, that even _The Book Of The Word, _and all that went with it was proscribed, and a pall of fear and dread began to hang over the planet, as a patchwork of increasingly jack-booted police states replaced freedom. A few, faithful to the Lords of Kobol and the ancient teachings, had seen the end coming, and prepared to leave.

Upon reaching here, with no hope of escape, it had been decided, in a compromise that satisfied all, that the technology and knowledge that had survived the crash would not be destroyed, but instead hidden, until "the time was right". So the survivors of the survivors of Kobol had waited, slowly growing and learning as time wore on, their leaders, a group best classified as Priest-Kings, secretly passing down the ancient knowledge to their successors, bringing elements of it out into the open when deemed appropriate.

_They certainly seem to have avoided the horrors of Ki, or of Terra, _mused Adama, looking out over the growing city. _Morally and such they have done well. Would we, I wonder, have done as well?_

_And what of Earth?_

"Excuse me?" asked Lugalzaggisi, standing next to Adama. "Earth?" Adama did not realize he had spoken the part aloud, and was confused a moment. The man's speech rendered _Earth_ as _Urdt, _and for brief instant…

"Earth? You know of it?" he asked the local ruler, not daring to hope for more.

"Of course, Commander Adama."

In return for this new knowledge, as well as all the rest, Adama had agreed to Lugalzaggisi's request for a tour of the _Galactica. _He and his wife and entourage were impressed, and soon the two long-sundered branches of the Kobollian tree were acting like old friends. Though he had hardly dared to ask, Adama's plea to allow the artifacts from Kobol to be examined was agreed to. Not only that, but a huge vault, deep under the Temple, was opened to him. It was filled with countless artifacts. Books, scrolls, machinery both mechanical and electronic, video recordings, artworks and statuary of great beauty, tables piled high with books and data chips, all saved from ruin and held against the day when they could once more be brought out into the light. With permission, they were all being scanned and analyzed by some of Wilker's technicians at this moment. While that was going on, the stories continued.

According to the chronicles kept since the ship from Ki had crashed here, after a few yahren, another ship had arrived over Boron-Din, though not one of the slavers. It had come, said the occupants, from "the Colonial Worlds". As with earlier settlers, these people had rebelled at giving up the technology they had grown accustomed to, and had refused to go along with the general destruction of the ships and science of Kobol, when the Colonies were settled. Unable to return to the Motherworld, they had decided to go in search of those who had chosen to settle Earth.

They never made it, though whether because of damage, the limit of their ship's power, or some other cause, was not remembered. These people had settled here, joining their sundered kin, and gradually blended into their growing society. Their ship, sadly, had not survived the millennia, having, Adama was told, sunk into the sea.

But, they also had brought items saved through the ages, and now revered as semi-holy relics. No one, not even the oldest wise men among them, were sure which came with which group, but it did not matter. All were fragments of the Lords, and their ancient ways.

**"My initial hunch was right," Adama said to Tigh, "The copy of _The Testament of_ _Arkada_ came from the first generation of settlers in the Colonies, who opposed the decision to destroy the advanced Kobollian technology. Clearly, there was a diverse collection of Humanity that tried to follow the Thirteenth Tribe's path."**

"And they ended up here," Tigh shook his head in amazement, as if the Executive Officer were chiding himself for all the skeptical beliefs he'd harbored for much of his life.

"I have no doubt of it, Tigh. Dr. Wilker's tests will tell us, one way or the other. But, inside, in my heart, I _know_ the results will confirm everything we've ever been taught."

"So now that we've found all that out, what do you do now?"

"Repay our hosts, of course," said the Commander.

Lugalzaggisi and his wife and entourage were impressed, particularly enjoying the entertainment aboard the _Rising Star, _and the obvious power represented by the _Galactica. _But it was not all theology, history, and drama. There was a dark truth which Adama knew he must reveal.

Which he did. Feeling that he must make these scions of Humanity aware of the dangers lurking out there in the void, he told their leaders all they had so far discovered about the slaver aliens. And, of course, the Cylons. If the Alliance's BaseShips ever came this way, a yahren from now or a hundred yahrens, they might well discover this primitive outpost in their pursuit of the Fleet. The leaders of Boron-Din were dismayed, but having been raided by the Ziklag slavers for yahrens, understood the dangers this implied. And, since steel swords and primitive muskets were no defense against Raiders and mega-pulsar cannon, he decided to give them a technical boost.

Books. Books filled with technical data, translated into the local writing system, and filling in gaps in what had been salvaged and kept. Texts on everything from improved agriculture, to medicine, to how to build simple aircraft, to astronomy and physics. He gave them whole libraries of science and learning, the sum total of Colonial knowledge, along with a few spare computer terminals, to be accessed and used at the discretion of the leaders of this world. Combined with what survived from the ancient Homeworld, these people now had the biggest library in the known universe. From what he'd seen so far, Adama felt the knowledge was in good hands.

As were those who wanted to stay. Out of the entire population of the Fleet, six people petitioned to remain here, sick of the voyage, sick of pursuit, and preferring the wilderness of a wild planet to the endless wilderness of space. Lugalzaggisi was agreeable, and it was with some regret that Adama watched them go. But, they had gained a few to replace them.

There were few aliens among the survivors of the Cylon Holocaust. No more than a dozen or so, aside from a handful that had been accepted into the Colonial Service. Most were survivors of Carillon, and generally kept to themselves, when not working their various jobs, berthing aboard the old science survey ship, the _Libran Academic. _There were the singers from the Carillon casino, a couple of Naytarians, and a few others. But now they had some extra passengers. Of those rescued from Boron-Din, there were a few non-Humans among the surviving liberated slaves. All it seemed were from relatively advanced societies, and none seemed inclined to remain on what was to them a backwater to which they had been kidnapped by criminals. Although they had no idea where "home" was in relation to Boron-Din, they were all eager to get back into space, to take their chances with the Colonials, in the hopes that some day, maybe, they might find their way back to where they belonged.

All were familiar in various ways with advanced technology, and after some consideration Adama agreed, and after laying down a few ground rules, the aliens were accepted. The fact that all were Humanoid greatly simplified matters as far as food and accommodations were concerned. One, the alien in the cell next to Jolly when he awoke on the planet, had even, it turned out, been a pilot of some sort on his own world, the name of which, along with his race, no one could as yet manage to pronounce, and expressed an interest in the Vipers. Adama was impressed when Jolly told him of how the alien had saved his life during their escape, and told him that he would see.

"All ships report ready, Commander," reported Tigh.

"Tracking satellites?"

"All recovered and stowed in their bays, sir. All outward evidence of our visit has been removed. All the debris in orbit from the Kian's ship has either been brought aboard for study, or been destroyed."

"Very good, Colonel. Helm, lay in the course for Earth. Take us out of orbit."

"Executing, sir," said Omega. Adama felt the engines begin to throb with power as Omega entered the commands, and turned to look at one of his monitors. The planet below was already starting to grow smaller as the massive Battlestar accelerated away. He looked down, to read again the farewell message from Lugalzaggisi, wishing him and his fair sailing to their destination, and smiled. When he looked up again, Boron-Din was gone.

"Magnificent," said Jolly's new friend from the arena, whose name was pronounced something like _Kloogkh._ They were in the Starboard Launching Bay, and Jolly, now medically cleared and returned to flight duty, was scheduled to go on patrol. He was looking forward to some time in a cockpit, after his recent adventure. Just, as Starbuck liked to say: "Me, a fast ship, and a fair galaxy". They were now four days out from Boron-Din, and he was itching to get back to work.

"That she is," replied Jolly, running a hand along the skin of the fighter, and looking around for his wingman this duty cycle, Lt. Croad. "There's nothing like flying a Viper. Nothing."

"Maybe I learn," said Kloogkh. "Fly Viper ship."

"Well, it's up to the Commander, but if you handle yourself as well in a cockpit as well as you did in the arena and that slaver bucket, I'm sure it'll happen."

"Arena!" spat the alien, with contempt. "Steal us, sell as slaves! Then make arena fight. No honor! Cylon like Ziklag. Worthless. No honor."

"None, Kloogkh." Jolly looked up as the lift sounded. "Ah. My wingman. Have to go. See ya when I get back."

"Yes!" said Kloogkh. He patted Jolly on the shoulder, his "pat" nearly buckling the pilot's knees. He grinned at Jolly, his crooked teeth, along with the heavy skull ridges and long wild hair, giving him a predatory look. "See you when back to _Galactica _come."

"Ready?" asked Croad, climbing into his ship.

"Ready!" replied Jolly, following suit. As his canopy dropped, he gave Kloogkh the thumbs up.

"_Q'PlaH!" _bellowed the newcomer, fist in the air, voice loud enough to be heard inside the cockpit.

Then, in a rush of flame, the Viper was gone.

ADDENDUM

"You're sure, Doctor?" asked Adama, in his quarters. It was the middle of his "night", and Dr. Salik had called him, on his private channel, declaring that this "could not wait." Although a tad grumpy at being awakened, Adama told him to come by. It was now five days since leaving the planet behind, and Adama let Salik's report drop onto his desk. "No chance of a mistake?"

"None, Commander. I couldn't believe it when I saw the results, so I ran the tests three times myself, just to be completely certain." He sat back and sighed. "The remains of the…being, killed by the force field door slamming on them were _not _those of some alien creature. The DNA from the corpse was badly degraded by the energy field, but enough was intact to run the basic tests. That, along with part of one eye allowed for a retinal scan. It was Corporal Metz who was killed by the force field door, not the captured alien."

"But then who was it who left the cell alive? The one you and Cassiopeia spoke to, and she treated?"

"I don't know _who,_ Commander. But I know _what._"

Adama looked at Salik's report again. The dead aliens had been so different from any creature he'd seen before, that the CMO had been forced to go outside his department for help. Eventually, he found a former zoology post-graduate student aboard the livestock ship, working as a vet, and together they had conducted the autopsies of the slaver aliens.

What they found surprised them greatly. Not only did the aliens have no skeletal structure of any kind, merely ligaments, they had no heart as a distinctly separate organ. Their blood chemistry was horridly toxic by any known medical standards, and their nervous system was unlike any living creature on record, with a brain larger and more convoluted than a Human's. Several of the internal organs could not even be identified with certainty, but when he got to the reproductive system…

"Three," he told Adama. "These creatures have three apparent sexes, Commander. Males, females, and a third, with no reproductive organs at all."

"Birth defect?"

"Possibly, but my zoologist friend Milo tells me there are analogs in some species, where some members are sexless, and only serve as workers. Or, some can change gender in response to environmental pressures or hormonal directives."

"Like some insect species? The Ovions were like that as I recall."

"Yes. And these creatures reproduce by laying eggs, Commander. Just like the Ovions. The structures in the female alien we examined were surprising similar to those in poultrons. But it gets weirder." He handed Adama the security tape from the isolation cell.

"Why haven't you shown me this until now, Doctor?"

"Partly because the creature in the cell attempted to disable the scanners, partly because with over sixty recovered people to medically check out, plus all the new cadet's flight physicals, and this," he indicated the report, "we're badly behind." He played the scan for Adama. The Commander was silent, as if he could not believe what he was seeing. He watched the scan again, and again.

"My God, Doctor. If this creature can do _that…"_

"It can. Another thing we found was that the alien's cells do not have an outer cellular membrane, like ours do. What exactly _does _hold them together we haven't figured out yet, but the structure is very fluid. That could account for this." He indicated the screen."

"Has a search been made for…Corporal Metz?"

"Yes. I tried to keep it as low-keyed as I could, considering. According to his barracks commandant, he returned to Security Section, but was absent at morning roll call. I even had Cassie call his mother, who lives aboard the Senior Ship, but she hasn't heard from him for nine days, and she says he calls her regularly, every secton."

"Alright, we keep looking. But I agree. As low-keyed as possible."

"Who can we trust, Commander? This creature can be anyone he wants to be. If he hears we're looking, he'll just…disappear again."

"He, or it, must certainly be aware we've discovered the switch by now, and _already_ know. But we must look, Doctor. Alright, I want this kept secret. The fewest possible people. And see if you can figure out some way to detect this thing, no matter what."

The corridors on the _Rising Star_ were mostly dark at this centar, the day's partyers and revelers having done their reveling, and gone, either on to more private reveling, or home. It made a lot to clean up, but Fred didn't care. He didn't even really think about it. He preferred the quiet times. A janitor aboard the luxury liner for almost twenty yahrens, he was a fixture, yet a fixture that few aboard ever really saw. He did his work, and did it well, and unless it did not get done, no one noticed, or cared.

Like tonight. He finished up in the Astral Lounge, and headed back to his area to stow his equipment. Waving or exchanging a few words with the late-night crew, he hauled his stuff back to the janitor's cubicle, at the end of a short cul-de-sac corridor, and opened the door. He stopped as the door slid open, heart nearly seizing in utter shock at the thing before him. Slick, greenish-grey skin, lumpy form, tridactyl hands reaching for him, and above all, the hideous multi-lensed eye in the middle of…

Strong, whip-like hands grabbed him, pulling him inside the room. The door closed. No one heard the screams from inside.

The _Rising Star_ was quiet once more.

"We can't let people know we have a shape-shifter aboard the Fleet," said Adama.

Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar, _Galactica, _leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest.

A shining planet, known as Earth.


End file.
